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Erik Barnouw tells the story of television from the beginning. It does not begin with Uncle Miltie and I Love Lucy, in fact Milton Berle doesn't appear until page 117. This is a story of television which begins seven decades earlier, when the first piece of the puzzle which would become television was unveiled: the telephone. This, Barnouw recognizes, is the birth of television, because it fired the imaginations of scientists and engineers, artists and entrepreneurs, and, perhaps most importantly, boys plowing fields with their horse teams. The stories of the young geniuses like Marconi and Farnsworth capture the imagination, and Barnouw highlights these heros' struggles in the wars waged by RCA against each of them. Greater attention is due Edwin Howard Armstrong, another young genius who was crushed by the monstrous corporation, but Barnouw gives Armstrong more than most. By the time RCA premieres television service in 1939, the reader understands that television has already had a tremendous impact on America. Television's greatest moments are here, and Barnouw does a excellent job of devoting appropriate amounts of time to each. The author recognizes how interwoven television has become in our society and some chapter breaks are measured by historical events, rather than by eras of television. The end of World War II and the assassination of JFK not only marked shifts in our nation's history, but in television as well. What followed were not historical events, as before TV, but media events. The book also features a very useful and interesting 11-page chronology, an excellent biographical notes section, and an exceptional indexes, all of which make this tremendously accessible. It is tremendously compelling reading. Don't pick it up before your favorite show, because you won't be able to put it down in time!
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