How Music Can Save The World

Solve the biggest challenges of our time through music with this groundbreaking guide by globally recognized thought leader in music, culture and urban policy Shain Shapiro.

Music can address and help solve the biggest challenges of our time. This book shows you how: through personal stories, case studies, and interviews, this is a new kind of music book – not about any genre or discipline, but about music as a form of resilience, and one that will appeal to any reader looking to take action to fight the biggest challenges that we face.

Through the six biggest political and social challenges of our time, learn how music can improve our lives, no matter where we live, with each chapter offering specific actions to use music as a tool to address and solve problems.

• Government and diplomacy: discover how music can accelerate economic diversification and support development. If we rethink music as an economic good, we can address extreme poverty and create sustainable jobs.
• The climate emergency: understand how music can speed up energy transition and fight climate denialism, and how minor changes can be made to reduce music’s impact on the environment.
• Migration: explore music’s ability to create more opportunities for newcomers and accelerate integration.
• Technology: Music has always been one of the first art forms to be disrupted by technological advancements, and AI is no different. See how music can protect and expand human creativity as AI develops.
• Our health: with music as one of the cheapest and best therapies available, learn how it can support healthy ageing, preventative healthcare and mental health across society.
• Inequality and disinformation: as a community-builder, music can be an apolitical way to facilitate communication with each other, so that collectively we can make the world a better place.

Music has always been a shared ground through history, and now it can be a galvanizing force for change when we need it most.