This book is an interpretive (rather than exhaustive) history of television which underscores the ascendancy of the communication revolution from the point of view of its most instrumental catalyst—TV.

The Columbia History of American Television chronicles television’s emergence as an idea whose time had finally come at the end of World War II through its eventual growth and maturation into the most influential social force in American civilization during the second half of the 20th century.  Those of us who analyze TV, like scholars in most disciplines, have spent the last generation investigating ever more specialized research topics.  As a result, very few one-volume histories of television even exist.  What The Columbia History of American Television does is bring together a wealth of new research on TV from a wide variety of perspectives that has been produced over the last generation into a single volume—taking a more macro view of the subject—while always linking the development of television to the larger contexts of national and international history.

The Columbia History of American Television.  New York: Columbia University Press, 2007; paperback edition 2008 (*Winner of the 2008 John G. Cawelti Book Award).