Introduction

Abstract By tracing the biography of a sound recording, Eugenio López’s “Un gaucho en París,” this introduction discusses the intersection of imperialism and phonograph culture, both as a defining factor in the emergence and consolidation of the sound recording business in the early twentieth century and as a significantly unexplored area in scholarship. Each section tackles this intersection from a different angle: the need of studying imperialism from below, that is, from the mundane interactions of imperial agents and colonial subjects on the ground; the conflation of empire and coloniality in the political and commercial affairs of the early twentieth century; and the significance of Latin America and the Caribbean for the history of sound recording in the Global South. The introduction ends with a brief overview of the subsequent chapters in the book and a set of possible routes to read it.