In the late 1920s radio exploded almost overnight into being America's dominant entertainment, just as television would do twenty-five years later. Gerald Nachman, himself a product of the radio years, takes us back to the heyday of radio, bringing to life the great performers and shows, as well as the not-so-great and not-great-at-all. Nachman analyzes the many genres that radio exploited or invented, from the soap opera to the sitcom to the quiz show, zooming in to study closely key performers like Jack Benny, Bob Hope, and Fred Allen. Raised on Radio is a generous, instructive, and sinfully readable salute to an extraordinary American phenomenon.

Gerald Nachman has for thirty-eight years covered theater, movies, cabaret, and television for newspapers and magazines across the country. The author of three previous books, he lives in San Francisco.

"During its palmy days . . . [radio] was one of the glories of American entertainment. Nachman's goal is to refurbish that glory, and he achieves it with evocations of shows, their stars, and even their sponsors, and I doubt I've ever read a book with a higher count of sparkling anecdotes per chapter."—Dennis Drabelle, Washington Post Book World

"[A] compelling guide to an era."—Carolyn Alessio,Chicago Tribune

"There have been many books written on the subject, but none that I know of that is written with such verve and joyful sense of rediscovery."—Mel Gussow, New York Times

"An adoring, nostalgic, anecdote-stuffed history of radio's golden age."—Scott Alarik, Boston Globe

"Nachman takes such delight in chronicling the medium's rise and fall that even readers raised away from radio will understand why a whole generation projected their imaginations onto this vast sonic canvas."—Publishers Weekly