Radio went to war on five continents shortly after the Nazi party came to power in Germany. In eight years it has been streamlined from a crude propaganda bludgeon into the most powerful single instrument of political warfare the world has ever known. More flexible in use and infinitely stronger in emotional impact than the printed word, as a weapon of war waged psychologically, radio has no equal. Spreading with the speed of light, it carries the human voice seven times around the globe in one second…Radio speaks in all tongues to all classes. All-pervasive, it penetrates beyond national frontiers, spans the walls of censorship that bar the way to the written word, and seeps through the fine net of the Gestapo. It reaches the illiterate and the informed, the young and the old, the civilian and the soldier in the front line, the policymakers and the inarticulate masses. So great is the importance of radio today that the seizure of a defeated nation’s transmitters has become one of the primary spoils of war. The victorious Germans, in the terms of their Armistice with France, allowed her to retain her fleet but silenced, for the time being, her wireless transmitters. To retain one of these became a crime equivalent to the retention of arms or munitions, and was punishable by immediate execution at the hands of the firing squad. -- From chapter two, page 11.

"A ʻCurrent history' book." Includes index.

Dials of war -- Radio : instrument of conquest -- The strategy of war by radio -- The story of international broadcasting -- Germany speaks : bombs for the mind -- The fabulous Lord Haw-Haw -- Radio’s battle of France -- Berlin's Benedict Arnolds -- Radio war on the U.S.A. -- The Axis speaks to Latin America -- Radio Roma : Berlin’s branch office -- The BBC goes to war -- The BBC invades the continent -- V for victory -- London calling the world -- The radio general -- The mighty voice of the Kremlin -- Penny whistles from the Far East -- the secret stations : voices from out of the night -- U.S. radio’s “good neighbor” policy -- Uncle Sam talks back -- Listening post -- Radio : spearhead of the democratic offensive -- Appendix. How shortwave radio works.