Saturday, May 12, 2012

Five best books about the golden age of radio

Anthony Rudel is the author of Hello, Everybody!: The Dawn of American Radio, the novel Imagining Don Giovanni, and two books on classical music.

In 2008 he named a list of the five best books about the golden age of radio for the Wall Street Journal, including:
A Tower in Babel
By Erik Barnouw
Oxford, 1966

The first of the three volumes in Erik Barnouw's towering "A History of Broadcasting in the United States" takes the reader back to the late-19th century, when scientists experimented with technology that would allow them to send sound electrically through the air. His descriptions of the earliest efforts of Guglielmo Marconi, Reginald Fessenden and other inventors bring those brilliant men to life and clearly explain the complex science involved. Though it has been used as a textbook, "A Tower in Babel" is also a model of historical storytelling and provides a fine underpinning of modern broadcasting.
Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue