- Hardcover: 326 pages
- Publisher: New York University Press (30 Sep 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0814793819
- ISBN-13: 978-0814793817
- Product Dimensions: 23.7 x 17.1 x 2.6 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,135,049 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Rebels on the Air
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Review
"Without a doubt, this is the most detailed and well-researched book ever published on the history of free radio in America. This includes the most comprehensive history ever written on the modern microradio movement; culled from personal interviews, the writing is mostly engaging and fast-paced...A must read."-"The About Guide",
Review
"Without a doubt, this is the most detailed and well-researched book ever published on the history of free radio in America. This includes the most comprehensive history ever written on the modern microradio movement; culled from personal interviews, the writing is mostly engaging and fast-paced...A must read."-"The About Guide", --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
JOE PTAK LIVES in a ranch house in Sunset Acres, a neighborhood just off the freeway in San Marcos, Texas. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
JOE PTAK LIVES in a ranch house in Sunset Acres, a neighborhood just off the freeway in San Marcos, Texas. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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3 reviews
29 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Finally, a *true* history of how radio happened
27 Nov 2001
Format: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!
28 of 30 people found the following review helpful
Radio Ga Ga
15 Oct 2001
Format: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.
Flawed by sloppy research
22 Feb 2010
Format:Hardcover
An interesting, well-written book that gets many facts right. It should, however, be read with a grain of salt Passages that I have first-hand familiarity with are woefully wrong. The problem, as I see it, is that author Walker relied on sources who deliberately mislead him and, rather than seek different accounts and opinions, published the self-serving distortions. That is a shame, because it casts doubt on the veracity of the book's entire content and could easily have been avoided if more responsible research had been done.
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