Although the product of a self-proclaimed consensus politics, the British Empire was always based on communications supremacy and the knowledge of the atmosphere. Using the metaphor of a thread of five pieces representing the categories science, industry, government, the military, and the education, this is the first book to study the relations between wireless and Empire throughout the interwar period. It is also the first to make full use of the abundant archive material and rich sources existing in Britain and the Dominions. The book examines the evolving connection between the development of imperial radio communications and atmospheric physics; the expansion and strength of the British radio industry and its relationship with the elucidation of the ionosphere; and the different extent to which Australia, Canada and New Zealand managed to emulate the British model of radio R&D in the interwar years. The book ends with a highly original and provocative epilogue: 'The realist interpretation of the atmosphere'.

In 1873 Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell first advanced the idea that there might be electromagnetic waves that were similar to light waves, a startling concept to the scientists of his day. About 13 years later, German physicist Heinrich Hertz demonstrated in his laboratory that electromagnetic radiation did indeed exist. But it was not until after Hertz's death that a young Italian named Guglielmo Marconi got the idea for a practical communications system based on Hertz's work. Marconi was surprised and disappointed that the Italian government was not interested in his newly discovered wireless communications system, and thus he took his equipment to England. From that point on, the wireless became identified with Britain. From these beginnings, wireless radio became the basis of a revolution that has resulted in the satellite communications of today. This history first looks at Marconi's invention and then explores its many applications, including marine radio, cellular telephones, police and military uses, television and radar. Radio collecting is also discussed, and brief biographies are provided for the major figures in the development and use of the wireless.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Empire and Communications" by Harold Adams Innis. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

During the 1920s and 1930s the new medium of radio broadcasting promised to transform society by fostering national unity and strengthening and popularising national cultures. However, many hoped that 'wireless' would also encourage international understanding and world peace. Intentionally or otherwise, wireless signals crossed borders, bringing talk, music, and news to enthusiastic 'distant listeners' in other countries. In Europe, radio was regulated through international consultation and cooperation, to restrict interference between stations, and to unleash the medium's full potential to carry programmes to global audiences. A distinctive form of 'wireless internationalism' emerged, reflecting and reinforcing the broader internationalist movement and establishing structures and approaches which endured into the Second World War, the Cold War, and beyond. This study reveals this untold history. Wireless Internationalism and Distant Listening also explores the neglected interwar experience of distant listening, revealing the prevalence of listening across borders and explaining how individuals struggled to overcome unwanted noise, tune in as many stations as possible, and comprehend and enjoy what they heard. The volume shows how radio brought the world to Britain, and Britain to the world. It revises our understanding of early BBC broadcasting and the BBC Empire Service (the precursor to today's World Service) and shows how government influence shaped early BBC international broadcasting in English, Arabic, Spanish, and Portuguese. It also explores the wider European and trans-Atlantic context, demonstrating how Fascism in Italy and Germany, the Spanish Civil War, and the Japanese invasion of China, combined to overturn the utopianism of the 1920s and usher in a new era of wireless nationalism.

In the extension of the Japanese empire in the 1930s and 1940s, technology, geo-strategy, and institutions were closely intertwined in empire building. The central argument of this study of the development of a communications network linking the far-flung parts of the Japanese imperium is that modern telecommunications not only served to connect these territories but, more important, made it possible for the Japanese to envision an integrated empire in Asia. Even as the imperial communications network served to foster integration and strengthened Japanese leadership and control, its creation and operation exacerbated long-standing tensions and created new conflicts within the government, the military, and society in general.

Although the product of consensus politics, the British Empire was based on communications supremacy and the knowledge of the atmosphere. Focusing on science, industry, government, the military, and education, this book studies the relationship between wireless and Empire throughout the interwar period.

Behind the Wireless tells the story of women at the BBC in the 1920s and 30s. Broadcasting was brand new in Britain and the BBC developed without many of the overt discriminatory practices commonplace at the time. Women were employed at all levels, except the very top, for instance as secretaries, documentary makers, advertising representatives, and librarians. Three women held Director level posts, Hilda Matheson (Director of Talks), Mary Somerville (Director of School Broadcasting), and Isa Benzie (Foreign Director). Women also produced the programmes aimed at female listeners and brought women broadcasters to the microphone. There was an ethos of equality and the chance to rise through the ranks from accounts clerk to accompanist. But lurking behind the façade of modernity were hidden inequalities in recruitment, pay, and promotion and in 1932 a marriage bar was introduced. Kate Murphy examines how and why the interwar BBC created new opportunities for women.

Empire of the Air tells the story of three American visionaries—Lee de Forest, Edwin Howard Armstrong, and David Sarnoff—whose imagination and dreams turned a hobbyist's toy into radio, launching the modern communications age. Tom Lewis weaves the story of these men and their achievements into a richly detailed and moving narrative that spans the first half of the twentieth century, a time when the American romance with science and technology was at its peak. Empire of the Air is a tale of pioneers on the frontier of a new technology, of American entrepreneurial spirit, and of the tragic collision between inventor and corporation.

Filling in a key chapter in communications history, Dwayne R. Winseck and Robert M. Pike offer an in-depth examination of the rise of the “global media” between 1860 and 1930. They analyze the connections between the development of a global communication infrastructure, the creation of national telegraph and wireless systems, and news agencies and the content they provided. Conventional histories suggest that the growth of global communications correlated with imperial expansion: an increasing number of cables were laid as colonial powers competed for control of resources. Winseck and Pike argue that the role of the imperial contest, while significant, has been exaggerated. They emphasize how much of the global media system was in place before the high tide of imperialism in the early twentieth century, and they point to other factors that drove the proliferation of global media links, including economic booms and busts, initial steps toward multilateralism and international law, and the formation of corporate cartels. Drawing on extensive research in corporate and government archives, Winseck and Pike illuminate the actions of companies and cartels during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, in many different parts of the globe, including Africa, Asia, and Central and South America as well as Europe and North America. The complex history they relate shows how cable companies exploited or transcended national policies in the creation of the global cable network, how private corporations and government agencies interacted, and how individual reformers fought to eliminate cartels and harmonize the regulation of world communications. In Communication and Empire, the multinational conglomerates, regulations, and the politics of imperialism and anti-imperialism as well as the cries for reform of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth emerge as the obvious forerunners of today’s global media.

For much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Britain was the dominant world power, its strength based in large part on its command of an Empire that, in the years immediately after World War I, encompassed almost one-quarter of the earth’s land surface and one-fifth of its population. Writers boasted that the sun never set on British possessions, which provided raw materials that, processed in British factories, could be re-exported as manufactured products to expanding colonial markets. The commercial and political might was not based on any grand strategic plan of territorial acquisition, however. The Empire grew piecemeal, shaped by the diplomatic, economic, and military circumstances of the times, and its speedy dismemberment in the mid-twentieth century was, similarly, a reaction to the realities of geopolitics in post-World War II conditions. Today the Empire has gone but it has left a legacy that remains of great significance in the modern world. The Historical Dictionary of the British Empire covers its history through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 700 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Britain.