Radio

Brian Regal teaches American history and the history of science and technology at the TCI College of Technology in New York—the school originally founded by Guglielmo Marconi in 1909. His previous publications include Henry Fairfield Osborn: Race and the Search for the Origins of Man (Ashgate, 2002) and Human Evolution: A Guide to the Debates (ABC-CLIO, 2004). His most recent article is Maxwell Perkins Editor of Eugenics in The Princeton University Library Chronicle (February, 2005).

• AcknowledgmentsSeries ForewordIntroductionTimelineThe Ancestry of RadioRadio is BornPlastic and TransistorsPrivate to PublicThe Cultural JuggernautHaranguers, Listeners, and Howard SternDid video kill the radio star?GlossaryBibliography

Radio was more than just a media delivery system: it was a new technology which changed and connected the lives of the world, moving from a clumsy wireless telegraph to a system which is so much a part of our lives that its roots have all but been forgotten. So as not to forget, Radio: The Life Story of a Technology considers both the scientific and social changes radio brought, considering it as a cultural phenomenon and providing a history of the business and social impact of radio. There have of course been other radio histories on the market - but none other with the attention to both social and economic impact.