The Books of My Life: Television in the Antenna Age

 

Television in the Antenna Age: A Concise History (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005) by television historians and critics David Marc and Robert Thompson explores, in brief compass. the history of American radiotelegraphy or radio and American television, radio with pictures. Beginning with the development of the telegraph, the antecedent of radio and television in the early twentieth century, Marc and Thompson explore how something that was developed for commercial and military uses at sea became the dominant form of entertainment and information for Americans after the 1920s. Along the way, Marc and Thompson tell the tale of radio and television from the network era, that era in which the cartel of NBC, CBS, and later ABC, dominated the over the air airwaves, and its demise with the coming of satellite fed cable television in the 1980s. Marc and Thompson's lively and well-written history is enlightened and enlivened by oral histories, some of them done by Marc, and collected by the Center of the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University.

Television in the Antenna Age is aimed at American high schoolers engaged in college preparatory work and college undergraduates. However, it is also an excellent very short introduction to the subject of American broadcasting hitting all the high and low points of that history from the innovations in broadcast technology, to the quiz show scandals, to government regulation of lack thereof, and to jiggle television. Highly recommended for those who want a brief refresher course on the history of broadcasting and for high school college prep courses and college courses. By the way, the fact that Marc and Thompson often use footnotes as a refresher course in American history says something about the current state of schooling and education in America.