Every year we, your humble Radio Survivors, endeavor to help our readers find unique, interesting and appropriate gifts for the radio lovers in their lives (or for yourself).When you order using one of our links to Amazon, you also give a gift to Radio Survivor, helping us pay the bills and keep the site going. It doesn’t cost you a single cent more.

• Jennifer’s gift guide includes a hot calendar, radio jewelry, radio lit, along with some cool actual radios.
• This year Matthew suggests eight great history books about radio broadcasting, covering everything from the culture and history of public radio to sex and indecency in broadcasting.
• For my gift guide this year I recommend some really great headphones, an inexpensive USB audio interface to enhance your online listening as well as my desert island radio. I have owned or used every single one of these items, so they come mediageek approved.

Anthony Rudell’s Hello everybody! The Dawn of American Radio is a wonderful introduction not only to the beginnings of American radio, but to the culture of the 1920s and early 1930s. You get a front row seat for a unique cast of characters: Aimee Semple McPherson, medicine crackpot John Romulus Brinkley, Father John Coughlin, crooner Rudy Vallee—the whole shebang overseen by a shy Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover. The narrative concludes with the Roosevelt fireside chat years.

Warning to policy wonks (I include myself in this category): Hello everybody! doesn’t get very deep into the regulatory history of the era, which is why it makes a great gift for your non-policy wonk radio loving friend.

Susan Douglas’ Listening In: Radio And The American Imagination is the best single volume discussion of radio in the United States, period. Its witty, compelling narrative challenges you with a fascinating assessment of the cultures that radio has promulgated, up to and including free form and talk radio. No surprise that Douglas is particularly strong about the politics of gender—given her equally wonderful study, Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female With the Mass Media.

Listening In‘s sections on the emergence of audience research and the rise of Hi Fi radio are particularly strong. This book is a must have for any serious history of radio collection.

Jesse Walker’s Rebels in the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America takes you all the way back to the wireless morse code boys of the Progressive Era, and lands you down with the pirate radio crowd of the 1980s and 90s. I’ll quote one of the book’s first blurbers:

“Rebels on the Air is a joyous, smart, lucid, hilarious, critical and engaging celebration of community based, non-commercial radio in the United States. Jesse Walker vividly captures the people, their visions and achievements, their friends and enemies—all in a book that is great fun to read.”

That was me who said that (back when I was famous, sort of). The tome lays it all out from a libertarian perspective, and includes extensive coverage of community radio and the Pacifica stations through the turbulent 1990s (borrowing just a tad for the early period from my tome Pacifica Radio: The Rise of an Alternative Network). There’s a particularly strong chapter about grassroots radio around the world. Ten years after its publication, Rebels is still a great read.

Mark Fisher’s Something in the Air: Radio, Rock, and the Revolution that Shaped a Generation is a smart, engaging history of commercial radio from the 1940s onward. It takes you through the formative days of Top 40 and how radio transformed itself at the height of the television era. Something gets all the right connections between the youth culture and race, and pays close attention to important technological shifts like the invention of the transistor; the book also has an exquisitely dishy chapter about the payola scandals of the late 1950s.

Significantly for a Radio Survivor reader, Fisher’s book is the first study to successfully integrate a Pacifica station (WBAI in New York City) into a larger history of broadcasting—a task meticulously avoided by just about every mainstream scholar thus far.

NPR lovers: Jack Mitchell’s Listener Supported: The Culture and History of Public Radio is the book for you. It is a compassionate and critical look at the subject that gives you a broad overview from an insider’s perspective. I especially love the opening chapter about how 1960s era college radio managers turned the Corporation for Public Television into the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and won the funding that made NPR possible.

Dirty Discourse: Sex and Indecency in Broadcasting is authored by that dynamic scholarly duo, Robert Hilliard and Michael Keith. It’s a  great retelling of America’s ongoing effort to control broadcast potty talk, going all the way back to the suppression of Mae West (I still think that NBC should apologize to her). George Carlin and Pacifica vs. FCC gets the full treatment. A nice monograph on an important subject; still a big deal, in case you didn’t notice.

Bill Crawford and Gene Fowler’s Border Radio: Quacks, Yodelers, Pitchmen, Psychics, and Other Amazing Broadcasters of the American Airwaves is just a great yarn about all those miscreants on the Mexican border, from J. Romulus Brinkley to Wolfman Jack. You also get to meet Texas politico W. Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel, Patsy Montana (“I want to be a cowboy’s sweetheart”), and self-proclaimed cancer curer Norman Baker of Muscatine Mississippi’s KTNT (“Know the Naked Truth”).

I’m not sure I’d want to meet most of these folks in person, with the exception of The Wolfman. But I sure love reading about them in books like Border Radio.

Finally, if you know anyone who is planning to start a pirate radio station in the near future, please buy them a copy of Sue Carpenter’s 40 Watts From Nowhere. The book is sine qua non for anyone who aspires to run any kind of community-style radio signal, as far as I’m concerned, because it shows how different said institution looks from the bottom up (a volunteer) and the top down (a manager).

40 Watts chronicles Carpenter’s experiences founding and running two pirates: KPBJ in San Francisco and the far more successful KBLT in Los Angeles through the 1990s. Spoiler alert: the message of the book is that Ya Gotta Have Rules, even if you’re a rebel. Attention all media anarchists: Read 40 Watts so you’ll know what you’re getting into.

1. 2012 Tower Site Calendar: Call it porn for the radio geek in your life. Scott Fybush’s latest calendar features images of transmitter sites from all over North America.

2. Radio Jewelry: There are a variety of choices, including a silver vintage radio charm, microphone cufflinks, and HAM radio cufflinks.

3. Radio Lit: If you want to find some radio literature, there are some great options, including Michael Keith’s tome The Radio Station, Eighth Edition: Broadcast, Satellite and Internet. For tinkerers, there’s 22 Radio and Receiver Projects for the Evil Genius.

4. A Kids’ Clock Radio: I think it’s important to get kids listening to radio early, so this LEGO Alarm Clock Radio is a no-brainer for Lego-obsessed school kids. If you have a girly girl on your gift list, the Lego radio also comes in pink and there are also a number of sweet Hello Kitty clock radios and boomboxes.

5. Stylish Gear and Underground Sounds from Your Favorite Non-Commercial Radio Station: Some of the best radio-themed apparel can be found by perusing the webstores of your favorite local college and community radio stations. KCSB at UC Santa Barbara is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and they have a special commemorative T-shirt. I’m also quite fond of the new KFJC girlie T-shirt featuring a retro cat eyeing a fish bowl record player. Non-commercial stations are also a great source for intriguing music compilations, including KDVS’s new cassette-of-the-month club subscription, featuring both musicians from the Davis/Sacramento area as well as “out of town” artists.

6. Emergency Radio to Keep You Informed During a Disaster: It’s becoming increasingly clear that terrestrial radio is a vital source for information during a natural disaster. Heroic stations have guided citizens safely through emergencies when their communities have been hit by earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Hand-crank radios, solar-powered radios, and weather radios are good tools to have in your emergency kit. One option is a Solar-Powered Radio and Cell Phone Charger, another is the Voyager Solar/Dynamo Emergency Radio, which also includes shortwave and weather radio options. There’s even a shower radio that has a built-in weather radio in case you want to keep apprised while lathering up.

7. A modern clock radio: There are all sorts of clock radios that combine features from both smart phones and the classic AM/FM radio technology. Try the Dual Alarm Clock Radio for iPhone/iPod with AM/FM presets.

8. Build Your Own Radio Kit: Every self-respecting electronics nerd built their own radio back in the day. Share this tradition with your favorite youngster. One DIY kit is the Snap Circuits FM Radio.

9. Cool Tabletop Radio: There are some beautiful tabletop radios out there, including some that are focused on AM/FM radio (like this Crosley Solo Radio), satellite radio, and Internet Radio.

10. Radio Movies: I’m a big fan of “djs in peril” films and one of the best is Play Misty for Me. If you want something nostalgic, there’s Radio Days and if you want something educational, there’s the Ken Burn’s documentary Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio.

If you need more tips, take a look at our previous posts:

Paul’s Recommended Radios for Holiday Gifty Time

2010 Holiday Gift Guide for Radio Fans

Top Holiday Gifts for Radio Lovers

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays from Radio Survivor!

As the shopping season gets even more frenetic, we wanted to help simplify things for you by sharing a few of the radio-themed gift guides that we’ve put together for our readers over the past year.

On these lists you’ll find radios, books, toys, accessories, DVDs, radio shows, and other items that might appeal to you or to your radio-obsessed friends and family.

And, remember that when you purchase items on Amazon through links on Radio Survivor, we get a small referral bonus, which is a lovely gift for us.

I’m still waiting to get that build-your-own-radio kit, myself…What’s on your list?

Paul’s Recommended Radios for Holiday Gifty Time

2010 Holiday Gift Guide for Radio Fans

Top Holiday Gifts for Radio Lovers

Here are my suggestions of gifts for radio lovers-2010 style:

1. 2011 Tower Site Calendar: This is the 10th edition of this calendar, which features photographs of towers, including radio towers. Put together by Scott Fybush, an associate of the radio tower loving Garrett Wollman (our very first Radio Obsessive); this calendar would be a great gift for radio engineers and fans of radio architecture.

2. Areaware SSKMRS Magno Model 1 Sustainable Personal Radio: I saw one of these gorgeous wooden radios in a local store this weekend and was in love. This would be the perfect gift for design-minded eco-conscious radio fans. It’s made from sustainable wood and a percentage of the sale goes to sustainable forest replanting.

3. Gear from Your Favorite Local Non-commercial Radio Station: One of the best purchases that you can make is gear from your local non-commercial radio station. Whether it’s a cool T-shirt, compilation CD or LP, baseball cap, fly swatter, or a shot glass; supporting local radio is a very good thing. Might I suggest the brand new KFJC zip-up hoodie? Or you could send some funds to WFMU in order to get your name on a balloon attached to station manager Ken Freedman during their Lift-Off event next week.

4. Fisher Price Build & Fix – Radio Repair Toy: I was excited to see an episode of the kids’ TV show Handy Mandy in which the protagonist heads over to a radio station to do some repairs. So, you can get your kids into the groove of understanding radio’s relavance by picking up this toy radio repair kit for them.

5. SportSyncRadio: Earlier this month I wrote about various radio options for sports fans who want to listen to a radio broadcast while watching a live event on television. This stand-alone radio is an all-in-one solution.

6. Another option for synchronizing radio with live sports is the Griffin Technology RadioShark AM / FM Desktop Radio with time-shift recording, which can also be used to record radio.

7. 40 Watts from Nowhere : A Journey into Pirate Radio: Every time a new pirate radio station appears on the scene, I’m reminded of this fascinating first-person account by Sue Carpenter. In this book she eloquently outlines the challenges of running a station based on anarchistic principles. You can read Matthew’s review of the book here.

8. Hello Kitty Boombox Wallet: I love that radio imagery is making its way into fashion and this Hello Kitty wallet adorned with a radio boombox is adorable.

9. Rhinestone Old School Boombox Gold Belt Buckle: This belt buckle is over-the-top, with its gilded boombox and is a great gift choice for radio fans who embrace hip hop culture and fashion or for anyone who wants to add a bit of glamor to their life.

10. Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound: There are lots of great radio books out there, but “reality” radio doesn’t get much ink. Here’s a recent book full of essays written by documentary radio practitioners, from Ira Glass to audio performance artists.

An NPR bookshelf (source: NPR)

National Public Radio published an interesting blog post this week on how it handles books. This is a subject of interest to many people. NPR receives over 100 books a day for consideration.

So how can you get your magnum opus on All Things Considered? As you might guess, NPR’s Lori Grisham insists that there are no “hard and fast” rules to success in this area. But there appear to be some to be some soft and slow ones. Here they are:

1. Figure out what some NPR reporter really likes

Attention scholars of antiquity, get thy books to Neal Conan.

“I have an interest in ancient history, so we do a lot of ancient history,” Conan told Grisham, which is why he interviewed Adrian Goldsworthy in September about his book Antony and Cleopatra .

“I know Goldsworthy’s work well. I’ve read both his biography of Caesar and his book on the Fall of the Roman Empire–and we’ve tried to get him on the show in the past. Goldsworthy is a wonderful story teller, a quality that helps a lot in a live radio program.”

So if you already listen to NPR, start listening to various reporters for a sense of what really bakes their cookies. Then contact the right one with your recipe.

2. Pitch the book’s potential as an audio draw

Grisham writes:

A book might catch NPR’s attention if someone thinks it would make a strong audio story. An example is Susan Stamberg ‘s interview with playwright Harold Pinter’s wife, Lady Antonia Fraser about her book Must You Go? My Life With Harold Pinter .

“She’s a wonderful writer. I’ve interviewed her in the past and I knew she was a good talker,” said Stamberg. “In addition, I lost my own husband three years ago and what she did was basically create a memoir of their life together,” she said. “It very much connected with me.”

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to get the message here. When you send your book to NPR, emphasize your skills (if you have them) as a storyteller. Maybe even include an audio clip.

3. Follow NPR Books

Aside from the fact that it gets about one million visits a month, NPR Books isn’t a bad place to hang out, with lots of book related features and reviews. You probably also want to follow the reviewers. Heller McAlpin regularly reviews books for NPR, and his posts can be found on the NPR Books pages.

McAlpin also writes for The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, and The San Francisco Chronicle. It stands to reason that if you want your book on NPR, you might want to get his attention.

Here is some less helpful advice that I offer because I am a cynic.

4. Be Michele Norris

NPR’s Michele Norris is the only author in existence who has managed to get her memoir on all four of NPR’s big shows: Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, and Tell Me More.

“Now is a good time for NPR to formulate a policy on how to handle future staff books,” NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard concluded after an investigation of Norris’ good fortune. “Such a policy, making clear that NPR employees should be treated the same as other authors, will go a long way toward enhancing credibility and showing that NPR isn’t favoring its authors and artists over others.”

5. Be famous already

“A book might get selected if the release is likely to make a splash in the book world,” Grisham writes. “This occurred when Washington Post writer Bob Woodward’s book, Obama Wars, made news in September.”

So try to be Bob Woodward or his equivalent if you can.

Is there anything you shouldn’t do? Yes. Don’t bother sending your book to every part of NPR.

“Some publishers will send the exact same book to every department,” NPR mail room staffer Ernesto Permodo told Grisham. “And it ends up on the free shelf in a week or so.”

DJs Mona Lott and Tony DuShane at KFJC. Photo Courtesy Tony DuShane

On Radio Survivor we tend to talk more about what it means to be a radio listener than what it’s like to be behind the scenes as a radio DJ.

I’m one of those serial DJs who hasn’t been able to shake off the lure of hitting the airwaves year after year in order to both learn about new and obscure music, but also to share my love of music with others.

In an interview that I did recently with community radio DJ and Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk author Tony DuShane, I was struck by the importance that radio (and music) has played in his life and think that he speaks for many long-time DJs when he says:

“It’s an addiction. I have to DJ. There’s a difference when DJing at clubs and bars. When you’re DJing to FM airwaves, you’re DJing into space. There’s no feeling like it. It’s like inviting people over and playing records and talking about the records. Except your friends are in range of a transmitter. There could be five. There could be 5,000.”

For me, being on the microphone and the ritual of doing a radio show brings with it a surprising sense of calm, even though the minutes before my show are always fraught with panic about what to play first.

So, all of you DJs out there, what is it that keeps you coming back week after week?

Radio's Hidden Voice

In light of the 70th anniversary of the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System’s (IBS) annual conference last weekend, it’s a good time to reflect on the college radio pioneers who rarely get mentioned in radio history discussions.

My fascination with the early days of college radio began when I started diving into the history of the radio station at my alma mater, Haverford College. Although Haverford’s first radio station, WABQ, drew much press and attention during its short run from 1923 to 1927; few people outside of the college are aware of the triumphs of this student-built station that was for a time the most powerful college radio station in the United States.

So, it was with great interest that I sought out Hugh Richard Slotten’s 2009 book Radio’s Hidden Voice: The Origins of Public Broadcasting in the United States.

In the book he points out that,

“Radio stations at universities were particularly important because they pioneered some of the earliest experiments with radio in the United States and they played a key role in the establishment of an alternative, noncommercial, public service model for broadcasting.”

Also of interest to me is Slotten’s acknowledgment that college radio faced competition from commercial stations way back in the 1920s. He writes,

“As early as 1922, President Jardine at Kansas State College wrote to a colleague about his fears that commercial interests were actively ‘trying to eliminate’ college radio stations.”

It’s not surprising, considering the huge growth of radio in the United States in 1922. According to Slotten, on January 1, 1922 there were only 28 licensed broadcast stations in the U.S. This number soared to 570 by December 1, 1922.

In the book, there’s a big emphasis on the importance of stations at land-grant universities, many of which offered extension courses and home study courses over the radio airwaves (particularly in the 1920s) for residents in rural areas. Slotten points out that by the late 1920s there was even more competition for space on the radio dial and that many stations were forced to share frequencies and commercial stations seemed to be favored in the Federal Radio Commission’s decisions surrounding assignments.

In order to gain more insight into his research into the early days of educational radio in the United States, I spoke with Hugh Slotten over email. In our conversation he talks about how he became interested in college radio, explains why much of college radio’s early history has been unwritten, and offers up his take on why pinpointing the “first college radio station” is such a challenge.

Jennifer Waits: When did you begin researching the history of radio and what sparked your interest in educational radio?

Hugh Slotten: I especially got interested in the history of the early university stations after I wrote my first book on broadcasting.  That book dealt with technical standards and the role of engineers in the early regulation of radio and television.  I realized while doing the research for that book of the importance of these early university stations.  It seemed clear that there was an important early history that needed to be uncovered.  It was also clear that their history was tied closely to the early history of government policy.  Because I attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a graduate student, I was also aware that these stations were some of the first in the country (WHA at the UW-Madison).

Jennifer: I’m amazed that you’ve uncovered so much about the early days of educational radio. Why do you think this history has been largely unexplored?

Hugh: I think it has been ignored especially because the winners in the battle that occurred early on (between the large commercial networks and the small, noncommercial stations) have tended to write the history.  The standard histories have focused on the winners, who portrayed the “American System” of commercial radio operated by large networks as inevitable (the best system possible).

The records of most of the earliest stations have also been lost (in general).  But I was able to find much information in university and college archives about the educational stations.  This wasn’t easy, so that would help explain why the early history of these stations has not been explored.

Jennifer: There’s a great deal of conflicting information about who can rightfully claim to be the “first” college radio station in the U.S. In your opinion, which station was the first?

Hugh: It depends on the criteria you use to figure this out.  They didn’t give “broadcast” station licenses until after WWI.  There clearly were experiments going on as early as the late 1890s with radio or wireless at universities (wireless telegraphy).  The federal government didn’t officially start to keep track of stations until 1913.  People were operating “stations” at universities and colleges before then but they were more like amateur operators (and not voice transmissions expect for a few exceptions).

The first licenses were not for “broadcasting” because this didn’t exactly exist as a separate concept until after WWI.  I had a researcher look up all the university and college station licenses from before WWI and 1920 (published in an official register starting in 1913) …Interestingly, one of the earliest licensed stations at a small college was a station at Beloit College.

The University of Wisconsin was one of the first university stations to broadcast voice transmissions.  It also continued to operate during WWI (the other ones were forced to shut down).  I think that is why it claims to be the earliest continuously operated broadcast station.  But you see that it depends on the specific criteria you use.

Chess Match at WABQ in the 1920s Photo courtesy of Haverford College Archives, HCHC photographs

Jennifer Waits: Why do you think that land-grant university stations were “more important” than stations at other types of universities?

Hugh: Most of the earliest stations were at the larger state universities.  During the 1920s when “broadcasting” took off, things were different (lots of smaller schools had stations too).

I focused on the state university stations especially in my book, but I think more could be done with the stations at smaller schools and private universities.  The state university focus on extension education (especially using radio for agricultural extension) is very important.  It provides a larger justification and a larger source of support for these stations (state support).

Jennifer: Your book is concerned with educational radio being a precursor to today’s public broadcasting in the United States. From that perspective, how do you feel about the trend in recent years for some independent college radio stations to turn more and more of their day over to programming from public broadcasting companies?

Hugh: Actually, I wasn’t aware of that.  I know there has always been a tension been smaller independent, noncommercial stations and stations connected to the national public broadcasting system.  Local interests clearly suffer when national networks became dominant, but I know that it has always been difficult for small, independent stations to survive.  Your discussion of the recent history of the Haverford station seems to underscore this problem.

Jennifer: I’ve been doing a lot of research about the history of college radio at Haverford College. From what I’ve read, their station was unique in the 1920s in that it was built entirely by undergraduate students. They ultimately sold off their station at the end of 1926 to a commercial station in Philadelphia. Have you run across similar stories of stations from the 1920s that were student endeavors?

Hugh: Students played important roles at all of these stations (larger state universities too).  But at the state universities, faculty always seemed to have oversight.  Often, the stations were tied to existing extension divisions too.  Your research on the Haverford station seems to show that the smaller colleges were a bit different–faculty and staff did not seem to have as much oversight (students seemed to be more independent).

Jennifer: Have you ever been a college radio DJ?

Hugh: No.  I went to Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana (another Quaker school).  My brother was a DJ there in the early 1980s, but I wasn’t.

Jennifer: Are you a fan of college radio today? What are your favorite stations?

Hugh: Since I’m in New Zealand, I don’t get to listen to stations over the air in the US (although I am in the US fairly often).  I do listen on the internet sometimes.  When I’m back in the US, I’m usually either in Washington, D.C. doing research or visiting relatives in Carlisle, PA.  In Carlisle, I do listen to the Dickinson College station sometimes.  Also, the Messiah College station is available, and I also enjoy hearing that station.

Jennifer: Is there anything else you’d like to share about your radio research?

Hugh: I did see your discussion of the early years of the Haverford station.  That was very interesting, especially about the international chess playing, which I didn’t know about.  Here is a link to a great early photo of students at Radcliffe using a radio station (or radio equipment)…It does show that some women were involved in this early period (1922).

Prominent historian and activist Howard Zinn passed away last week on January 27, 2010, at the age of 87 years old. Best known for his book A People’s History of the United States, which has sold almost two million copies to date, Zinn wrote history from the “bottom-up.”  I had the pleasure of seeing Zinn in person in San Francisco last year during his Voices of A People’s History event, a tour that recruited actors and actresses to read excerpts from Zinn’s book, such as Tecumsah’s Speech of the Osages, Mary Ellen Lease’s Wall Street Owns the Country, and Vito Russo’s Why We Fight. In honor of Zinn’s memory, in this article I will be listing some audio files of Zinn speaking, some of my favorite Zinn books, and some biographical information to anyone that might be interested in learning more about such an amazing individual.

Listening to history

Zinn’s Artists in a Time of War is an overview of the history of the United States and features Zinn discussing a number of important themes and events, such as patriotism in modern times and the Spanish-American War. LearnOutLoud.com also hosts a sizable amount of Zinn audio files, which can be found here. Another possible method that I feel doesn’t get enough attention is looking into audio CDs and/or tapes of some of Zinn’s books, such as A Peoples History of the United States, on CD.

Bottom-up history

As I mentioned earlier, Zinn was well-known as a historian for writing bottom-up histories and for popularizing the field. Each of the books that I will list, with the exception of Howard Zinn’s biographies, fits this description.

1)A People’s History of the United States: This may seem obvious, but, if you haven’t read it yet, I strongly suggest that you look into it. It’s easily Zinn’s best-known work, and it will at least provide you with a decent background in U.S. history.

2) Voices of a People’s History: This work is generally considered a followup to a People’s History of the United States and contains a number of the first-hand accounts mentioned in Zinn’s more popular work, although the former works better for establishing a historical background.

3) You Can’t Be Neutral On A Moving Train: Easily one of my favorite Zinn books. This autobiography by Zinn is absolutely fantastic and provides a great personal history in general as well as an interesting perspective on U.S. history since the mid-1920s.

4) Postwar America (1945-1971): This book truly opened my eyes in that it forced me to reconsider all of the history that I learned about from this period in school. I’m rather fond of Jack Greene’s description of the book, which was included in the editor’s forward and calls the book “a stringing indictment of the dominant groups within American society for their failure to live up to the principles on which this nation was founded, a relentless and probing revelation of the glaring discrepancies between the rhetoric of American liberalism and the facts of American life in foreign affairs, social organization, corporate behavior, race relations, the administration of justice, and the tolerance of dissent.” Honestly, although A People’s History motivated me to study history and definitely helped me to think more critically, Postwar America might actually be my favorite historical Zinn work.

5) Passionate Declarations: Basically a small collection of essays written by Zinn covering a broad range of topics. I especially enjoyed Zinn’s arguments regarding human nature which he links to warfare, stating, “History is full of warfare, one cannot find an era free of it; this must mean that it comes out of something deep in human nature, something biological, a drive, an instinct for violent aggression. This logic is widespread in modern thought, in all classes of people, whether highly educated or uneducated. And yet, it is almost certainly wrong. And, furthermore, it’s dangerous.”

6) SNCC: The New Abolitionists: Zinn’s account of SNCC’s involvement in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s is particularly interesting because he actually spent a significant amount of time traveling with the organization and experiencing many of the events that he describes first-hand.

The life of Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn was born in 1922 in a poor area in Brooklyn, New York, to two poor Jewish immigrants. Truly growing up at the start of modern times, Zinn watched as his father struggled with a number of temporary jobs and his mother worked tirelessly towards the well-being of the family. As Zinn became increasingly class-conscious he began to hate the notion that one could become rich in America simply by working hard, noting (in his autobiography) that his family had no refrigerator, shower, radio, or telephone during most (if not all) of his childhood.

Zinn became a self-proclaimed radical in 1940 after attending a nonviolent demonstration at Times Square and being beaten by policemen on horseback. Regardless, later that year, Zinn began working at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, which, as he began to notice large discrepancies in the treatment towards the African-American employees, strengthened Zinn’s views on class consciousness and race. Zinn joined the Army Air Corps in 1943 and, most notably, was ordered to assist in the bombing of a small French town called Royan to allegedly rid the area of some German troops, although the incident also resulted in the deaths of roughly 350 French civilians. Royan drastically influenced Zinn’s views on war, which is extremely apparent in his Postwar America book with his discussion of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Upon his return to the United States, Zinn married the woman that he had been seeing before the war (Roslyn) and enrolled at NYU with the help of the GI Bill. Struggling to support his growing family, Zinn also began working as a night-shift worker in a warehouse and as a part-time instructor at Upsala College. The hardships that Zinn and his family were forced to endure, particularly with regard to their residence in a low-income housing project, further strengthened his views on class consciousness and race.

In 1956 Zinn and his family relocated to Atlanta, Georgia, so that Zinn could accept a teaching position as the chair of the history and social studies departments at Spelman College, which was, at the time, an all-female, all-African American institution. Immediately encountering racism while looking for a place to live, Zinn began asking his students to write down their first memory of racial prejudice . Touched by the responses to his inquiry, Zinn proposed the formation of a Spelman Social Science Club to advocate social chance in the area, soon becoming the group’s formal teacher adviser. The group’s mission soon began to focus around the issue of desegregation, which eventually, after a lot of work, led to the formal desegregation of the Atlanta library system.

In 1963 Zinn joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced “snick”) for a early voter registration campaign in Selma, Alabama. Fascinated by the attitudes and hard work of these “youngsters,” Zinn wrote a first-hand account on the group titled SNCC: The New Abolitionists which focused on “SNCC people in action” and “the quality of their contribution to American civilization.” Zinn’s important position within SNCC led to some (to be blunt) damning attacks on the federal government, particularly with their seeming inability to protect civil rights workers from violence and torture during the movement, much of which can be found in a chapter titled “I Want To Know: Which Side Is The Federal Government On?” (based on a line that was forcibly omitted from John Lewis’ speech in Washington, DC).

Zinn’s involvement with SNCC has led some individuals to distrust his work as too biased, claiming that he should be more objective in writing historical accounts. However, Zinn seemed to hate the notion of “objectivity,” stating that it is “neither possible nor desirable.” Specifically,

It’s not possible because all history is subjective, all history represents a point of view. History is always a selection from an infinite number of facts and everybody makes the selection differently, based on their values and what they think is important. Since it’s not possible to be objective, you should be honest about that. Objectivity is not desirable because if we want to have an effect on the world, we need to emphasize those things which will make students more active citizens and more moral people.

Well, I’ve rambled on for quite a bit, so I’ll end with my favorite Howard Zinn quote. Thank you for taking a moment to join me in mourning the loss of such an amazing individual.

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history of not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

The craziness of the holiday shopping season is now upon us and hopefully there’s someone on your list (maybe you) who deserves a little radio love. Whether you are shopping for a retro radio dude, a kid with a penchant for pop, someone with an eye for high design, or your favorite radio scholar, there are tons of cool toys, gadgets, and tomes out there that embrace the beauty of radio.

Here are some options. To see images of these gifts, just click the triangular up and down buttons at the bottom of the carousels:

For the Techy Teen: Build Your Own AM/FM Radio Kit

Kids just aren’t making their own radios like they used to. Buck that trend by getting your kid, niece, nephew or favorite teen one of these.

For the Kids: Hello Kitty Clock Radio

I say, get the kids listening to radio at the youngest age possible.

For Lovers of Retro Design, but with All the Modern Features: Crosley Turntable with CD Player and AM/FM Tuner

I’m always drooling over the beautifully designed Crosley turntables with all of the modern acoutrements. This particular model reminds me of an antique radio that we had in my house when I was a kid.

For Those of Us in Earthquake Country: Solar Powered Portable Radio

Everyone needs to have one of these in their emergency kit. You can recharge the radio by using the hand-crank as well.

For Mom and Dad: Shower Radio

Oh my god…I had no idea they still made shower radios. For that reason alone, this made the list. Just think, you can catch the news, weather and traffic in the comfort of your own shower.

For Time-Shifting Radio Lovers: Digital Recorder with mp3 player and AM/FM tuner

With this cool device, you can record radio much like you would use TiVo to record television.

For Radio Nostalgia Buffs: Antique Radio

I grew up in a house full of usable antiques, including old radios and phonographs. They don’t make things like they used to, so it’s always fun to seek out vintage pieces. Your local antique store and eBay are full of gems, including this crazy vintage space age-style Sputnik radio from the 1960s.

For Radio Historians: Empire of the Air DVD

This lauded Ken Burns documentary recounts the early days of radio.

For Bookish Alterna-Radio Types: Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America

This is a great book for those who are interested in reading about some of the creative characters behind various non-commercial radio stations.

For High Design Lovers: Antique Style Radio

This would just look so cool on the shelf.

For Non-Commercial Radio Supporters: CDs, LPs, Tshirts, etc. from their Favorite Radio Station

College, community, and public radio stations are always in need of your cash….and they often have really cool promotional items that you can pick up as gifts. Might I shamelessly plug KFJC’s 50th Anniversary LP to you? Or perhaps a cute girlie T-shirt?

For Terrestrial Radio Fans with Bad Reception: Internet Radio Receiver

I Love this idea. Instead of listening to your favorite radio stations through your computer, you can use this dedicated Internet radio. It’s perfect for places like San Francisco where FM radio reception is often dodgy, especially for the college radio stations that I listen to. It’s also got Pandora built in to in if you end up bypassing the bounty of streaming terrestrial stations.