Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America (Paperback)

~ (Author) "JOE PTAK LIVES in a ranch house in Sunset Acres, a neighborhood just off the freeway in San Marcos, Texas..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, San Francisco, Top Forty (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Contemporary mainstream radio offers very little diversity; play lists are chosen in corporate offices, and stations across the country sound very similar. An associate editor for Reason magazine, Walker argues that government collusion with big business for decades is responsible for reducing variety and eliminating dissident voices in radio broadcasting. Opening his history of alternative radio with the amateur operators in the early 1900s, he shows that as soon as the first regulations were passed in the Radio Act of 1912, pirate stations began defying the rules. Walker de0ions that pushed the limits of radio broadcasting (both legally and illegally), documents the history of the Pacifica Foundation and the community radio movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and ends with some open questions about the future of micro radio and the potential of the Internet. The use of interviews and anecdotes brings life to this history. Both academics and radio enthusiasts will appreciate this book. Judy Solberg, George Washington Univ. Lib., Washington, DC
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"A great addition to the literature of the ways in which the state...stifle[s] people's freedom." -- George C. Leef, Freedom Daily, March 2002

This includes the most comprehensive history ever written on the modern microradio movement...the writing is most engaging and fast-paced. -- The About Guide

“Both academics and radio enthusiasts will appreciate this book.” -- Library Journal: --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: NYU Press (June 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814793827
• ISBN-13: 978-0814793824
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #893,718 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally, a *true* history of how radio happened, November 26, 2001

By	"rab_42" (Port Orchard, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America (Hardcover)

So many other radio 'history' books just tell you all about what programs were on which corporate network and which DJs were indicted for payola -- without bothering to explore how radio broadcasting came about, where the innovations came from, and how and why most of the current spectrum has become so bland in the last twenty years. Jesse Walker gets into all this and more: he gives just about the best and most complete history of radio broadcasting's *true* pioneers, from spark-gap to internet: the underground and alternative radio movement. I thought I knew a lot about the subject (at least regarding pre-1980 radio), but Walker's book has five times more in it than I even knew existed -- and extends right to the end of the 1990s. I highly recommend this book!

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Radio Ga Ga, October 15, 2001

By	Houyhnhnm "houyhnhnm" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America (Hardcover)

Is radio doomed by the Internet? When was its golden age? Is it a triumph of capitalist business or government planning?

In the course of telling tale after absorbing tale, Jesse Walker answers these questions and dozens of others in "Rebels on the Air."

Unlike most people who talk on the radio, however, Walker writing about radio doesn't come across as a simpleton. He is a very thoughtful appreciator of excellence as well as a fine diagnostician of failure. He understands the theory of radio as a business enterprise, and is unencumbered by a narrow ideology. He knows what happened; he is a master of fact. And he has insight into what might have happened; he is the master of the counterfactual. Further, being informed and no fool, he is as reliable prophet as any; it pays to listen to what he says.

From the beginnings of radio as point-to-point communication through its strange evolution to broadcasting, winding up in recent dispensations of "piracy," micro radio, community radio, and even the Citizens Band, Walker ushers the reader through a rogue's gallery of fascinating revolutionaries. Radio, it turns out, is not just a humdrum affair. It has featured strange people saying odd, perceptive and occasionally wise things, playing music other than top 40 or classical warhorses, turning listeners on their ears.

To most people, commercial radio and NPR delimit the narrow confines of the medium: to these, Walker's history will come as a revelation. To the knowing few who have heard (or at least heard of) Firesign Theater or Jean Shepherd or The Crazy Cajun Show, Walker is a sensible surveyor of diversity on radio, the ideal defender of both idiosyncratic entertainment and responsible "enlightenment."

Radio may usually be boring, but Walker's book is not. For anyone who cares about the medium or its messages, "Rebels on the Air" is indispensable.