The Rough Guide to World Music, Volume 2; Latin & North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific

by Mark Ellingham (Editor)

The eagerly awaited Volume 2 of the World Music reference guide.Expanded and fully revised. New A-Z format and two-color printing throughout.

Genres: Music, Reference, Nonfiction

683 pages, Paperback

First published October 23, 2000

About the author

Mark Ellingham was born in Wiltshire, UK, in 1959. After leaving Bristol University in 1981, he was unable to find an interesting job and decided to create his own, writing the first Rough Guide (to Greece). He secured a publishing contract – Routledge paying an advance of £900 ($1800) – midway through writing it. The book was an immediate success and Mark and various friends set to work turning the Rough Guides into a series, producing a dozen further titles over the next five years.

In 1985, Mark and a group of Rough Guide writers and editors, including current travel publisher Martin Dunford, bought the series from Routledge and became independent publishers. They developed more than 200 titles, covering travel and reference subjects as diverse as world music and pregnancy, before selling the company to Penguin Books, in 2002.

Mark (and Martin) continued to run Rough Guides’ publishing at Penguin, 25 years on from that first title, and created a new one-off “ultimate travel experience” series – 25s – to mark the anniversary.

Mark is also a contributing editor for the world music magazine, Songlines, a director of the travel magazine, Wanderlust, and co-publisher of Sort Of Books, which have published bestselling books by Chris Stewart and Tove Jansson, among others. He lives in North London with his wife, Natania Jansz, who co-wrote the first Greece book and now runs Sort Of Books, and their son, Miles. Mark says his interests and passions are charted by the titles on the Rough Guide list, ranging through music, film, football, literature and science. He is currently involved in campaigns to raise awareness of the impact of aviation on Climate Change.

Mark left Rough Guides in 2007 but continues to work as a co-editor on the encyclopedic Rough Guide to World Music. He is also a contributing editor at Songlines World Music magazine, and runs a green and ethical publishing list for Profile Books.

Reviews

[Marc · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series is very well done, well researched and a constant source of new discoveries. Can't live without it. The first edition was in 1 vol. The second had 2 vol. This volume is from the second edition (early 2000's). A third edition is being released ( 2 out of 3 vol are out so far). But keep this one as it is the most up to date for the Americas.

[Rivkah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a textbook for a World Music course in college. It provided sufficient details regarding music in various countries, particularly the more obscure countries that were not well-known.