This work investigates the mechanisms by which Claude Debussy's reputation was constructed and rehabilitated in the decades following his death. Marianne Wheeldon, a scholar of music history, utilizes archival research and critical reception studies to analyze how the perception of Debussy shifted from a controversial, potentially decadent figure to a central pillar of French national identity. The text argues that this transformation was not an inevitable historical process but a deliberate, collective effort involving critics, performers, and the shifting cultural politics of interwar Paris.

Scholars and music historians recognize this text as a significant contribution to the study of reception history and the sociology of music. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose and the meticulous archival research that supports the author's arguments.