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The BBC: A Century on Air - Hardcover | Diverse Reads

The BBC: A Century on Air

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The first in-depth history of the iconic radio and TV network that has shaped our past and present.

Doctor Who; tennis from Wimbledon; the Beatles and the Stones; the coronation of Queen Elizabeth and the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales: for one hundred years, the British Broadcasting Corporation has been the preeminent broadcaster in the UK and around the world, a constant source of information, comfort, and entertainment through both war and peace, feast and famine.

The BBC has broadcast to over two hundred countries and in more than forty languages. Its history is a broad cultural panorama of the twentieth century itself, often, although not always, delivered in a mellifluous Oxford accent. With special access to the BBC’s archives, historian David Hendy presents a dazzling portrait of a unique institution whose cultural influence is greater than any other media organization. 

Mixing politics, espionage, the arts, social change, and everyday life, The BBC is a vivid social history of the organization that has provided both background commentary and screen-grabbing headlines—woven so deeply into the culture and politics of the past century that almost none of us has been left untouched by it.

ISBN-13: 9781610397049

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Publication Date: 03-29-2022

Pages: 656

Product Dimensions: 6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 2.20(d)

David Hendy is a writer, broadcaster and Professor Emeritus of Media and Cultural History at the University of Sussex in England. His books include Life on Air: a History of Radio Four, which won the 2008 History Today-Longman Book of the Year Award and was nominated for the Orwell Prize.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Preface xi

I Crucible

1 Making a New World 3

2 Riding the Tiger 40

3 Professionals 74

4 Us and Them 106

5 Stardust 140

II War

6 Under Siege 179

7 London Calling 219

8 Turning the Tide 256

III Consensus and Conflict

9 A Bomb About to Burst 293

10 Building Pyramids 333

11 Strangers 373

12 The Shock of the New 410

IV Attack and Defence

13 Trade and Treachery 451

14 The Expanding Labyrinth 487

15 On the Rack 524

Postscript 562

Notes 572

Acknowledgements 607

Index 611