Relevant Reading:News from Germany: The Competition to Control World Communications, 1900-1945

Heidi J.S. Tworek

Today’s papers are filled with discussions of fake news, information warfare, and the global rivalry to control communications infrastructure. Yet as Heidi Tworek shows in her new book News from Germany, these concerns are hardly unique to our era. In the first half of the 20th century, Germany launched an ambitious strategy to establish a vast communications empire, one that would challenge the dominance of British and French news agencies and place Germany at the vanguard of new media technologies.In her deeply researched new book, Tworek unpacks this half-forgotten history to explain why German leaders were so obsessed with the news, and what their historical battles over wireless technology, news distribution, and global propaganda can teach us today.Heidi J.S. Tworek is an assistant professor of history at the University of British Columbia. Tune in this week as she joins Richard Aldous to discuss the book, and don’t forget to subscribe and follow @aminterest and @HeidiTworek on Twitter.