Klaus Wachsmann Prize for Advanced and Critical Essays in Organology, Society for Ethnomusicology, 2014. "A serious work of musical and cultural history."
Shelf Awareness "A fascinating cultural history of the most underestimated of instruments."
Booklist   "An illuminating and occasionally whimsical account, in keeping with the instrument itself."
Library Journal "An excellent book about the piano accordion's evolution, a number ... Read moreof major accordionists, and the many musical genres where it has been used, from polka and zydeco to rock 'n' roll and classical music. Fascinating reading not only for accordionists, ethnomusicologists, and folklorists, but especially also general readers interested in ethnic music and cultural history."
Deborah Anders Silverman, author of Polish-American Folklore    "Solid. . . . This book holds plenty of interest for those who love accordion music."
Kirkus Review  "Using meticulous research, Jacobson not only touches on how topics as diverse as immigration, movies, war, and feminism have influenced the accordion's popularity, but she also finds time to drop in countless little known pop culture nuggets about great accordionists."
Publishers Weekly "Wunnerful, wunnerful. . . . A delightful and illuminating surprise."
The Wall Street Journal "An academic resource, a detailed history, and a quirky travelogue. . . . [Time] to roll out the barrel and uncork the champagne: with this book, the lowly squeezebox has begun to get its cultural due."
Maclean's “Marion Jacobson prefaces her delightful book with a quote from the Minneapolis Journal of December 16, 1912: ‘A fearful instrument that looks like a cash register, and sounds worse, produces gasps of pleasure at the Orpheum this week. It is called the piano accordion and its behaviour is shameless.’ . . . This often-maligned instrument has found a worthy champion in Jacobson. Her likeable, informative and readable book, illustrated with superb colour plates of classic instruments and performers, looks set to remain the definitive work on the subject.” —Lou Glandfield, The Times Literary Supplement "An excellent, readable book, filled with all the names one needs to know. Highly recommended."
Choice "Jacobson is at her best when she is chronicling the history of the instrument that she loves and the social scenes of which it is a part. A fun read for accordion enthusiasts"
Ethnomusicology "Ethnographically rich, compellingly written, and resting on a solid theoretical and methodological foundation, Marion Jacobson's cultural history of the accordion is a welcome addition to the extant literature on popular music, free-reed instruments, and cultural and diaspora studies."
Italian American Review "Jacobson shows the complexity and vitality of the accordion culture in America. Squeeze This! is a groundbreaking work."
Journal of American Folklore "Squeeze This! presents sound ethnomusicological scholarship based on first hand musical knowledge and performance experience as well as field and scholarly research. Jacobson's contribution to the ethnography of musical instruments in general and of the piano accordion in particular is her portrayal of the processes by which an instrument enters and is assimilated into a culture."
Western Folklore "An enthralling monograph that explores the history, diverse cultural meanings, and multifaceted musical and social roles of the piano accordion in the United States.
Journal of the Society for American Music Show Less