"Sir Thomas Beecham says he believes that television can do much to improve the musical taste of the nation. " -- The London Times, September 1, 1936 "It is probable that television drama of high caliber and produced by first-rate artists will materially raise the level of dramatic taste of the American nation." -- David Sarnoff "Television? The word is half Greek and half Latin. No good will come of it." -- C.P. Scott, editor, Manchester Guardian, 1928 Having been involved with the Internet since 1981, I have watched discussions about the promise and perils of computer networks with an ever-growing suspicion that this drama had been played out before. In 1992, I began collecting books, articles, and data about the early history of telephony, radio, and television, with an eye toward writing a history of these past technologies that would enlighten current debates. Thankfully, Fisher and Fisher have written the book about the history of television that I would have written--and in a much more expert fashion than I could have hoped. In the tradition of the Sloan Foundation Technology Series other superb books (such as The Invention That Changed the World (about radar) and Computer: A History of the Information Machine), this is technological history at its best: informed about technology and the institutional and commercial matrices within which it works, and populated by a fully-realized cast of eccentric geniuses, captains of industry, and multinational corporations jockeying for mastery of a jillion-dollar industry. Very Highly Recommended.