This book aims to investigate the comparative development of the main forms of mass media (the press, film and broadcasting) in three societies - the United States, Great Britain and Germany - between 1890 and 1970. The main emphasis is on the political frameworks in which the media developed and the influence upon individual societies as well as on the international framework. This is the first work to provide access for students to much of the recent work on the history of the mass media.

Europe and the Third World provides a schematic historical analysis of the relations between Europe and the extra-European periphery within the twin contexts of global economic inequality and global disparities in political power. The colonial and imperial relationships between western Europe and the wider world since the late fifteenth century, and the course and consequences of decolonization, form the substance of the discussion, which concludes with a glance at the links between the European Union and the world's poorest states, most of which are former colonies.