American Radio in China: International Encounters with Technology and Communications, 1919-41 (Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media)

Interwar era efforts to expand US radio into China floundered in the face of flawed US policies and approaches. Situated at the intersection of media studies, technology studies, and US foreign relations, this study frames the ill-fated radio initiatives as symptomatic of an increasingly troubled US-East Asian relationship before the Pacific War.

Between 1919 and 1941, an array of American businessmen, diplomats, missionaries, and private citizens hoped to bring American radio to China. Initiatives included efforts to establish Sino-American radio-telegraphy links across the Pacific, start shortwave broadcasts of American programming to China, support America broadcasting in China itself, increase sales of American radio equipment, and carve out a niche on China’s airwaves for American missionary broadcasters. However, excessive faith in radio’s influential powers to promote the presumed benefits of American economic and cultural expansion blinded many Americans to the complexities they faced. American radio ultimately magnified rather than mitigated the tensions that pitched Americans against Chinese nationalists and Japanese imperialists in the years before the Pacific War. By drawing on scholarship in the history of technology, communications, media studies, and US foreign relations, the book’s exploration into the relationship between these fields enhances our understanding of today’s globalizing world.

American Radio in China: International Encounters with Technology and Communications, 1919-41 (Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media) Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (April 26, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0230252664
• ISBN-13: 978-0230252660
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,852,089 in Books

About the Author of American Radio in China: International Encounters with Technology and Communications, 1919-41 (Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media).
Michael Krysko is an Assistant Professor of History at Kansas State University, where he has taught since 2006. He writes on the history of technology, mass media, and U.S. foreign relations, and has a particular interest in international radio. Michael Krysko earned his Ph.D. at Stony Brook University in 2001 and spent five years on the history faculty at Dowling College in New York before joining the Department of History at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas.

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