(NORTH) AMERICANAJohn Philip Sousa's America: The Patriot's Life in Images and Words. By John Philip Sousa IV with Loras John Schissel. Chicago: GIA Publica - tions, 2012. [214 pp. ISBN 9781579998837. $34.95.] Illustrations, CD.Bully for the Band!: The Civil War Letters and Diary of Four Brothers in the 10th Vermont Infantry Band: Charles George, Herbert George, Jere George and Osman George. Edited by James G. Davis. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2012. [x, 290 pp. ISBN 9780786466863. $49.95.] Illustrations, bibliography, index.Connecticut's Fife & Drum Tradition. By James Clark. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2011. [xiii, 167 pp. ISBN 9780819571410. $29.95] Musical examples, illustrations, bibliography.Without doubt, John Philip Sousa is America's most frequently performed and internationally recognized composer. While his operettas, songs, suites, waltzes and other concert pieces are performed infrequently these days, his marches are ubiquitous. With the unprecedented success of his Washington Post in Europe and America, especially after being adopted by dancing masters as the two-step, a British band journal in the 1890s suggested that Sousa should be called the King. Since then, there has been an Austrian March King ( Josef Franz Wagner), a British March King (Frederick Ricketts/Kenneth Alford), a Czech March King ( Julius Fuciik) and significant march composers in France (Gabriel Allier), Germany (Hermann Blanken burg, Franz von Blon) and Italy (Giovanni Orsomando), but while all of these have composed many excellent marches, none has achieved superiority over Sousa either for quantity or for consistently fine compositions. Recognition of Sousa's foremost place among march composers came in 1987 when Congress legislated The Stars and Stripes Forever as the national march of the United States of America.Paul Bierley has devoted his life to researching Sousa and his band. With a comprehensive biography ( John Philip Sousa, American Phenomenon, 1973, rev. 1998), a works list (The Works of John Philip Sousa, 1984), a revision of Sousa's 1928 autobiography (Marching Along: Recollections of Men, Women and Music, 1994), an index to The Sousa Band (Fraternal Society News, 1998), and an in-depth study of the Sousa Band, complete with performance dates, programs, and personnel (The Incredible Band of John Philip Sousa, 2006), he has long hoped to prepare a coffee-table book filled with pictures and quotations of Sousa and the band members. Unfortunately, a stroke that lefthim partially paralyzed frustrated his efforts. He called on friends to help bring his dream to fruition.John Philip Sousa IV and Loras John Schissel have now accomplished that mission, and the book is dedicated to Paul Bierley and his wife Pauline. Although slim by coffee-table standards, the book is a delightful compilation of illustrations and quotations. With constant references to my my great-grandmother, my grandfather and Aunt Priscilla, it is obviously a labor of love on the part of their great-grandson. It is also a paean to his great-grandfather, so do not expect to find documentation, bibliography or index. It is not meant to be a scholarly book, but the illustrations, many of them new even to Sousa scholars, are delightful. Sousa IV credits co-author Schissel, who works at the Library of Congress, and the director and staffof the US Marine Band for help in finding the gems presented in the volume.The volume is divided into time frames, with photos, illustrations and quotations for each period, beginning with Sousa's early childhood. The many caricatures from newspapers give an idea of Sousa's conducting style on the podium. One sometimes regrets that complete identification of the musicians in the formal band portraits is not included, but then that would call for a different kind of book. In some cases, however, it would be interesting to have more information than what is given. …