Writer of the month: Peter Doggett - Electric Shock

Ambitious and ground-breaking, Electric Shock tells the story of popular music, from the birth of recording in the 1890s to the digital age, from the first pop superstars of the 20th century to the omnipresence of music in our lives, in hit singles, ringtones and on Spotify.

Over that time, popular music has transformed the world in which we live. Its rhythms have influenced how we walk down the street, how we face ourselves in the mirror, and how we handle the outside world in our daily conversations and encounters. It has influenced our morals and social mores; it has transformed our attitudes towards race and gender, religion and politics.
Peter Doggett has been writing professionally about popular music and cultural history for more than 30 years. A former full-time music journalist, his 750-page history of popular music and its impact on everyday life from 1890 to the present day, Electric Shock: How Popular Music Made the World Modern, will be published this summer.

The 2015 Writer of the month series of talks is sponsored by History Today.


We run an exciting range of events and exhibitions on a wide variety of topics. For more details, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/whatson. Entrance to The National Archives is free and there is no need to book, see nationalarchives.gov.uk/visit for more information.