Mark LeVine is a Guggenheim-winning musician who has recorded and toured with acclaimed performers, including Mick Jagger, Chuck D, Dr. John, Ozomatli, Hassan Hakmoun, Seun and Femi Kuti, and other leading Middle Eastern and African artists. His recording on Ozomatli's album Street Signs won a Grammy in 2005. He is also Professor of Middle Eastern and African Histories at the University of California, Irvine. His many books include Twilight of Empire, coedited with Viggo Mortensen. He is also author of Overthrowing Geography and coeditor of One Land, Two States.
"""Seen from one angle, Mark LeVine is a respected professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of California, Irvine, not far from Los Angeles. . . . But LeVine is also a rock guitarist gifted enough to perform in the shadow of Mick Jagger or Doctor John. . . . In fact, LeVine combines his academic methods and his passion for music in his solid investigations of the alternative scene in the Middle East . . . His last book, We'll Play Till We Die, deals with material gathered during, as the book's subtitle puts it, his Journeys across a Decade of Revolutionary Music in the Muslim World."" * Le Monde * ""The fresh and original perspective LeVine shows in Heavy Metal Islam and We’ll Play Till We Die opens our eyes to the power of music to create an audience, engage it and encourage it to act."" * Oriente Moderno * ""We'll Play till We Die offers readers a much anticipated sequel to his groundbreaking, ethnographic travelogue Heavy Metal Islam (2008). . . What emerges is a nuanced demonstration of the processes through which subcultures, countercultures, and revolutionary cultures develop and respond to state oppression and authoritarianism. Through the lens of popular music and culture LeVine and his coauthors provide a deeply personal testimony to a decade of ongoing revolution in the Islamic world."" * International Journal of Middle East Studies *"