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Fireside Politics Political 1920 1940 Reconfiguring

In Fireside Politics, Douglas B. Craig provides the initial elaborate and finish examination of radio’s altering role in American political culture amid 1920 and 1940 — the medium’s golden age, when it commanded big national audiences without contest from television. Craig follows the evolution of radio into a commercialized, networked, and regulated industry, and at last into an necessary tool for winning political campaigns and shaping American identity in the interwar period. Finally, he draws thoughtful comparings of the American experience of radio broadcasting and political culture with those of Australia, Britain, and Canada.

Review

An impressively researched and utile study… Craig subtly winds his interpretive, critical thread of the unfulfilled promise of radio as an engine of a more expansive democracy into a larger narrative with regards to the institutional and ideological sway of mercantile radio interests.

Douglas Craig’s main goal was to write a political history of radio broadcasting in the United States before World War II; however, he has likewise succeeded in constructing the best popular study yet published on the development of radio broadcasting for the duration of this crucial amount of time when key institutional and social patterns were established.

Fireside Politics is the most finish study so far of the interactions among broadcasting and the U.S. political scheme for the duration of the ‘golden age’ of radio… Likely to become a leading reference in continuing discussions over communication history, technology, and democracy.

A arousing and attention holding study making good use of archival material as well as prior research.

About the Author

Douglas B. Craig is a reader in history at the Australian National University. He is the author of After Wilson: The Struggle for the Democratic Party, 1920–1934.

Fireside Politics Political 1920 1940 Reconfiguring Image

Fireside Politics Political 1920 1940 Reconfiguring Image

Fireside Politics Political 1920 1940 Reconfiguring Image

Fireside Politics Political 1920 1940 Reconfiguring Photo