The Portable Radio in American Life

In this fascinating history of the portable radio, Michael Schiffer shows how this invention is as American as apple pie. Along the way, he tells how technology has responded to consumer preference, how corporate 'cryptohistory' has made us believe the Japanese invented the radio, and how the spread of the portable radio mirrors that of other technologies. More than four hundred photographs make this book both a definitive resource and a delightful browse.

Michael Brian Schiffer is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Laboratory of Traditional Technology at the University of Arizona, where he has taught since 1975. Born in 1947 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, he grew up in Los Angeles. He was educated in anthropology and archaeology at UCLA (B.A., 1969) and the University of Arizona (M.A., 1972; Ph.D., 1973). Schiffer has taken part in archaeological field projects in California, Arizona, Arkansas, Chile and Cyprus but is best known for his many and diverse contributions to archaeological method and theory. Especially important have been his writings on behavioral archaeology and on the formation processes of the archaeological record.