《噪音》(Noise)是歷史教授David Hendy探討聲音的歷史，獲英國《衛報》選為今年四部最令人興奮的非文學之一。

本書中，作者從薩滿鼓的玄幻儀式音樂、美國南方奴隸社區的歌曲、大屠殺淒厲聲、挖溝刺耳聲，再到名人鏗鏘有力的演說等，敘述十萬年來的歷史、音樂學、大眾文化、語言、藝術、人類學和心理學。

在史前洞穴，鼓者利用天然儀器製造美妙聲音；在古歐洲，演說家將人的聲音變成感情豐沛的工具；在佛寺聖殿裡，聖像的耳朵被神話象徵具有精神力量。然而，在現代大都會中，我們每天被各種吵雜聲疲勞轟炸。書中，以人為中心，再揉和作者在英國Radio 4探討此議題的節目內容，敘述了聲音的歷史。

雖然我們可以看到自己身處的視覺世界，然而我們的生活是建築於我們所聽到的。《噪音》是一部描繪聲音的歷史，亦是一部聆聽的歷史。

 

David Hendy is Professor of Media and Communications at the University of Sussex. Before this he was Professor of Media History at the University of Westminster. He has been teaching about histories of sound and the media for many years, and is completing a book for Oxford University Press (2014) called Media and the Making of the Modern Mind, which draws heavily on the new fields of sensory history and emotional history as it explores the development of sound and media from ancient times to the twentieth century. His last book, Life on Air, won the Longmans-History Today Book of the Year award in 2008. In 2010, he wrote and presented six editions of The Essay for Radio 3, including Rewiring the Mind, a 5-part psychological history of the modern media which was well-reviewed and has just won the 2011 James W. Carey Award for Outstanding Journalism the first time the award has gone outside North America.