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The BBC: A Century on Air

The BBC: A Century on Air

by David Hendy

PublicAffairs ·2022 ·656 pages
Maybe Someday
Maybe Someday
I Index
38/99
Bottom of the Pile

11/99

Critics' Rating Index

Near the Top

66/99

Readers' Rating Index

n/a

Scholars' Citation Index

77/99

Volume of Reviews

20/99

Volume of Reader Ratings

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About This Book

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 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.


Reviews

"From that point onwards, it delivers a lot of familiar tales ..."

Clive Davis· The Times (UK) Read review ↗ Maybe Someday

"Hendy's bottom-up approach stutters slightly when he tackles the postwar era."

Charlotte Higgins· The Guardian Read review ↗ Near the Top

"A comprehensive biography of the British Broadcasting Corporation ..."

Kirkus Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"The loudest voices belong to senior executives, not actors or presenters, let alone ordinary viewers and listener ..."

Dominic Sandbrook· The Times (UK) Read review ↗ Maybe Someday

"an entertaining if uneven history ..."

Publishers Weekly Read review ↗ Near the Top

"There is also perhaps an understandable bias of interest in the past, with two-thirds of the book devoted to the first half of the BBC's existence, inevitably leading to later compression ..."

Raymond Snoddy· The Irish Times Read review ↗ Near the Top

"Hendy...does set the scene rather well of these three influential figures at the dawning of what would turn out to be this country's biggest and most significant cultural institution."

Andrew Anthony· The Guardian Read review ↗ Maybe Someday

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