Radio History

Three thousand years ago, in the Southwest Asian lands we now call Israel and Palestine, a group of people worshipped a complex pantheon of deities, led by a father god called El. El had 70 children, who were gods in their own right. One of them was a minor storm deity, known as Yahweh. Yahweh had a body, a wife, offspring and colleagues. He fought monsters and mortals. He gorged on food and wine, wrote books and took walks and naps. But he would become something far larger and far more abstract: the God of the great monotheistic religions.

In these 34 intriguing episodes, leading historian Christopher Andrew rewrites history, considering what might have transpired if pivotal events had turned out differently. By altering a single, plausible fact, he explores alternative futures where the Spanish Armada landed on English soil, Pontius Pilate freed Jesus, the Nazis occupied Britain and many more.

This collection of William L. Shirer’s radio broadcasts tells the vivid story of WWII and brings the suspense of the times to life for today’s audience. As the first journalist hired by CBS to cover the war in Europe, Shirer compiled two and a half years’ worth of wartime broadcasts including Hitler’s invasion of Austria, the armistice between France and Nazi forces in June of 1940, daily roundups of news from Paris, Vienna, Berlin, London and Rome, documenting the conditions of these countries under invasion.

Hired by the Tibetan government, Royal Air Force veteran Robert W. Ford put together a radio communications network for a nation that had up to this time relied on messages carried by foot over the highest mountains on the globe. More important, his radio connected the secluded nation to the outside world. When, in October, 1950, the Communist Chinese army began its march to subjugate Tibet, Ford risked his life by staying behind to send out reports over his radio to let the world know.

Back in 1972, people had never heard of Samantha, Sven, nor Mrs. Trellis, and had no idea of the rules of Mornington Crescent, nor what points are for. The year 2022 marks 50 years of radio insanity—of the nation's finest comic minds being given silly things to do, with some of them set to music. Celebrate the Golden Anniversary of the greatest radio comedy of all time, the antidote to panel games, with the epic and exhaustive, fully authorized history of both I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again and its beloved spin-off, I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue.

Insightful, incisive and enlightening, the first volume of Simon Callow's comprehensive biography of Orson Welles. Now in abridged audio, Callow's vastly entertaining chronicle of Welles's first 26 years seems even finer than it did in 1995. The author's ability to skewer his subject's evasions and lies while retaining critical affection for him is perhaps explained by the fact that Callow, an actor himself, understands the need to mythologise. Welles's innovative theatrical work in the 1930s has never been better described or analysed.

NPR’s launch of the multi-platform series Turning the Tables in 2017, suddenly pushed more women onto “Best of” lists and into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. With How Women Made Music, acclaimed critic and TtT co-founder Ann Powers and contributor Alison Fensterstock draw from every Turning the Tables season and the full 50-years of NPR archives, to bring a vibrant, entertaining history of women in folk, rock, rap, hip hop, salsa, bubblegum pop, and much more.

From 1975 to 1979 Ronald Reagan gave more than 1,000 daily radio broadcasts, the great majority of which he wrote himself. These addresses transform our image of Reagan, and enhance and revise our understanding of the late 1970s - a time when Reagan held no political office, but was nonetheless mapping out a strategy to transform the economy, end the Cold War, and create a vision of America that would propel him to the presidency.

Our understanding of the human mind has been shaped by 200 years of accidents, inquiries, tests and observations. Here are the stories behind 33 of psychology's most famous and influential experiments, and their creators. Award-winning broadcaster and psychology lecturer Claudia Hammond uncovers the often surprising and sometimes dark histories behind landmark studies such as The Stanford Prison Experiment, Harlow's Monkeys, Little Albert and the Marshmallow Test.

This book is a unique inquiry into the history and the ongoing moral significance of mass communication as an idea and social form. Organized around narrative accounts of individuals and their communicative worlds, it strives to refigure mass communication as a concept, illuminate significant but overlooked rhetorical episodes in its history, and call listeners to reconsider their own engagements with it today.

While not dead, radio's familiarity has made it seem a bit mundane, but people shouldn’t think of it that way. In fact, the airwaves have always been a place of mystery, a battleground of competing ideologies, and a source of anonymous voices. Radio has been used to support war efforts, topple governments, communicate secretly, and even attempt to communicate with the dead. These strange stories will make this familiar medium seem a bit less familiar and far more interesting.

What a time it was. Suddenly, all across Nottingham, the UK's ninth biggest city, transmitters were crackling into life with another kind of voice, another kind of sound. In a way, we were back to the '60s. And in a way, we weren't. It all happened in the city of Robin Hood; but it could have been anywhere in the UK, where similar stories were being played out by like-minded individuals who were starting to realize that something was very, very wrong.... Make no mistake. This is the story of a revolution.

Jewell uncovers how battles to control college radio were about more than music—they were an influential, if unexpected, front in the nation's culture wars. These battles created unintended consequences and overlooked contributions to popular culture that students, DJs, and listeners never anticipated. More than an ode to beloved stations, this book will resonate with both music fans and observers of the politics of culture.

The Wireless World sets out a new research agenda for the history of international broadcasting, and for radio history more generally. It examines global and transnational histories of long-distance wireless broadcasting, combining perspectives from international history, media and cultural history, the history of technology, and sound studies. Bringing together their knowledge of a wide range of different countries, languages, and archives, the coauthors show how broadcasters and states deployed international broadcasting as a tool of international communication and persuasion.

Friendships, for many of us, are at the very centre of our daily existence and identity. Yet it hasn't always been this way. Our modern view of what makes a friend is shaped by centuries of political and social upheaval. In this landmark study, Dr Thomas Dixon considers both the differences and similarities between friendships in history and those we experience today.

Scripting Empire recovers the literary and cultural history of West Indian and West African writing at the BBC in order to rethink the critical mid-century decades of shrinking British sovereignty, late modernism, and mass migration to the metropole. Scripting Empire works comparatively across dozens of different programs spanning the General Overseas Service, Home Service, Light Program, and Third Program.

Crack of the Bat takes listeners from the 1920s to the present, examining the role of baseball in the development of the radio industry and the complex coevolution of their relationship. Despite cable television’s ubiquity, live video streaming, and social media, radio remains an important medium through which fans engage with their teams.

General U.S. Grant and General Sherman are caught off guard by the entire Confederate Army, with their backs to the Tennessee River! Confederate General Johnston's plan was to attack Grant's left and separate the Union army from its gunboat support (and avenue of retreat) on the Tennessee River, driving it west into the swamps of Snake and Owl Creeks, where it could be destroyed.

The Radio Right tells the story of the 1960s far right, who were frustrated by what they perceived to be liberal bias in the national media, particularly the media's sycophantic relationship with the John F. Kennedy administration. By the early 1960s, millions of Americans listened each week to conservative broadcasters, the most prominent of which were clergy or lay broadcasters from across the religious spectrum, including Carl McIntire, Billy James Hargis, and Clarence Manion.

Cold War Radio is a fascinating look at how the United States waged the Cold War through the international broadcasting of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). Mark G. Pomar takes listeners inside the two radio stations to show how the broadcasts were conceived and the impact they had on international broadcasting, United States-Soviet relations, Russian history, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.