Wireless and Empire: Geopolitics, Radio Industry, and Ionosphere in the British Empire, 1918-1939 (Anduaga, A.; 2009) [Book review

Abstract

Built on the less visible, yet dynamic, scholarship on the history of geophysics, the author-amidst a handful of recent historians-situates the beginning and growth of radio technology in the context of atmospheric science during the first half of the twentieth century. The outcome of this novel focus is the first book-length historical study of radio ionospheric propagation research. The author's focus of the book is to portray a complex social structure that shaped radio ionospheric propagation research in its formative years. Distinct intellectual traditions in physical sciences, the radio industry, engineering education, science policies, and geopolitics were all intertwined with one another in a kaleidoscopic frame. The author attempts to explain the ionosphere in terms of its impact on social, political, cultural, and economic conditions.