Television: An International History of the Formative Years

“Definitive” is not a word to be used lightly concerning any published work, but this magisterial study of television’s development up to 1940 richly deserves the term. Television: An International History of the Formative Years is the twenty-second title in the IEE’s History of Technology Series. Authored by R. W. Burns, a retired Royal Navy and academic physicist who a decade ago authored the equally fine study (part of this same series) British Television: The Formative Years (London, 1986), this new history is a balanced assessment of the host of conflicting claims to the invention and innovation of early television devices and services. Based largely on primary documents from the several countries covered, the study compares and contrasts television developments in England, the United States, France, and Germany, with marginal comments on developments elsewhere.

The study is divided into three parts. “The Era of Speculation,” 1877–1922, offers seven chapters that cover the earliest attempts to show moving images in the sixteenth century, initial notions of picture telegraphy, seeing by electricity, persistence of vision and moving images, developments in the first two decades of the twentieth century, and developments of importance to what would become television. The second part, “The Era of Low-Definition Television, 1926 to 1934,” comprises six chapters discussing John Logie Baird and mechanical television’s British breakthrough in the 1920s, German and French developments into the early 1930s, some early low-definition television broadcast services, and large-screen television experiments. The third and final part, “The Era of Pre-War and High-Definition Television, 1934 to 1939,” takes up the last half of the book. Ten chapters review the transition from low- to high-definition systems in the early 1930s, early camera tubes and the work of Farnsworth to 1935, Zworykin and the kinescope in the 1920s (before he moved to RCA), RCA’s growing role in electronic television from the 1920s to 1935, EMI and other British efforts in the early 1930s, the London station (at Alexandra Palace) of the BBC and foreign developments (1935–38), television in the United States (1935–41), and the BBC as the world’s first regular, public, high-definition system from 1936 to 1939. This is all supported by a series of appendixes: some of the 1889–1933 patents on scanning, characteristics of mechanical optical scanning systems, a 1930 “brief survey of the present television situation,” a comparison of intensity and velocity modulation, and the estimated cost of BBC television service from London and four regional British stations.

Several things combine to make this book so important: the careful research backing up the writing; valuable tables comparing many systems; a careful and reasoned weighing and balancing of the many conflicting claims and patents that helps to sort out old controversies; useful photos and diagrams of now-obscure early efforts; and a valuable review of the important relationships among innovators, their backers, and existing broadcasters. It is hard to imagine that anyone could do a more thorough job on this fascinating tale, based on the many archives Burns has used so effectively.

As with any study, there are limitations. The author notes that he does not examine color television or theatrical (“cinema”) uses of television. Also, “because the number of pre-war television patents runs into many hundreds some judicious selection has had to be effected. . . . Many of these patents were either naive or simplistic in concept, or were minor variants of other, more basic patents. A great number of patents were never utilized commercially” (p. x). However, such pruning is not only what good history is all about; it also leaves space for the extensive quotations from contemporary documents that provide such a vivid sense of what key figures thought of television’s development and problems at the time.

Burns writes clearly, with a contextual approach, stressing the influence of one discipline upon others over time. While not inexpensive, this landmark...