Clifford J. Doerksen is a film critic for Time Out Chicago. He earned his Ph.D. degree in history from Princeton University.
"""A vigorous and well-documented revisionist argument ... subtly hilarious ... elegantly researched and written.""--Journal of American History ""This book is the secret history of everything I've always wanted to know about my own medium. I read this book hungrily, turning the pages fast.""--Ira Glass, host of Public Radio International's This American Life ""A lively, well-written, deeply researched book that will significantly further our understanding of both radio history and American cultural history. Doerksen lays out precisely how stations and entrepreneurs previously dismissed as marginal to the emerging corporate consolidation actually helped shape American broadcasting with their innovations.""--Daniel Czitrom, author of Media and the American Mind: From Morse to McLuhan ""An intriguing blend of music and ad history, American Babel uses archives and source materials to examine stations, radio personalities, and their social influence.""--Midwest Book Review ""A significant step forward in revising our understanding of radio's initial decades...Doerksen should be commended for his thematic emphases, his thorough archival research, and his wide-ranging review of 1920s radio publications. Together they provide a vivid portrait of these stations, their audiences, and the reactions of mainstream corporate broadcasters.""--Enterprise and Society ""Well-written... Provides a wealth of information regarding the social context of early radio...The concluding chapter reveals Doerksen's brillance in summarizing the major issues that faced audiences during the 1930s.""--Journal of Radio Studies ""A vivid and exciting detective tale... An important intervention into the scholarly debate about the origins of the American system of broadcasting.""--American Historical Review ""A freshly written, accessible, and engaging tour across the dial of early American radio. Doerksen successfully combines archival material and various obscure sources to reconstruct the programming of these long-forgotten stations.""--Technology and Culture"