With all the books and CDs that used to live on our shelves ascending into the clouds, we still need something to put on our coffee tables, right?

That’s one way to explain “360 Sound,” a large, lovely, photo-crammed book celebrating a storied American record label’s 125 years in a business that’s recently turned perilous. Commissioned by Columbia, Princeton historian Sean Wilentz has undertaken the tricky task of sprinting across 13 decades of music, technology and commerce, sharing precious page space with 300 gorgeous archival photos of Columbia signees who helped shape the arc of American song....