About this Item
First Edition (NAP). Once listed, this will be the Only copy of this book for sale anywhere on the Internet. This book was previously owned by George V. Denny Jr., although he did not write his name in the book. (I have a number of books that he owned listed for sale, a number of which were signed and inscribed to him. The two that Dorothy Thompson signed and inscribed to him have sold). Denny created and moderated the popular radio broadcast called 'America's Town Meeting of the Air'. It ran from 1935 to 1956, mainly on the NBC Blue Network and its successor, ABC Radio. From the show's Wikipedia profile: 'One of radio's first talk shows, it began as a six-week experiment, and NBC itself didn't expect much from it. Broadcast live from New York City's Town Hall, America's Town Meeting of the Air debuted May 30, 1935, and only 18 of NBC's affiliates carried it. The topic for that first show was "Which Way America: Fascism, Communism, Socialism or Democracy? The moderator was George V. Denny, Jr., executive director of the League for Political Education, which produced the program. Denny moderated the program from 1935 to 1952 and had a major role in choosing weekly topics. Denny and the League wanted to create a program that would replicate the Town Meetings that were held in the early days of the United States'. 'On paper, America's Town Meeting looked like a typical panel discussion, with high-profile celebrity guests who were experts on a particular current issue. But while many shows had well-known experts, few had the kind of audience participation that this one did. They cheered or applauded when they liked what a speaker said, and they hissed or booed when they felt the speaker was wrong. They also heckled: part of the format of the show was to allow members of the audience to ask questions, and while the rule was the question had to be brief, with no insults or name-calling, that didn't stop people from using sarcasm, or strongly disagreeing with what a guest had said. Even the listeners at home could take part: while at first there was no easy way to get callers on the air, by 1936, NBC engineers had designed a method for letting listeners call in from remote locations where they had gathered to listen to the show'. This book was part of a series called 'Town Hall Lectures', and the first page written by Denny states 'From time to time Town Hall publishes certain lectures on important questions which were originally presented in Town Hall. This is the fourth publication of Town Hall lectures during the 1939-40 season. The present volume carries the series of three special lectures delivered by Louis K. Anspacher, under the general topic, "Passing the Torch Down the Centuries": (I) England, the Seventeenth Century; (II) France, the Eighteenth Century; (III) Germany, the Nineteenth century.' The book has held up rather nicely. The covers do have some light foxing but are very clean. The gilt lettering on the front is very bright. The edges and corners are in solid shape. There is just a bit of light rubbing at the spine edges. There was never any lettering on the spine. The page edges look good. The book is square and very solidly bound from cover to cover with nicely tight pages throughout and nicely tight covers as well. The interior of the book is in excellent condition. I've scrolled through the pages several times without finding any soiling. Nor is there any foxing. The pages do have the expected toning, but it is uniform. I'm not seeing any creasing. There are no markings. No attachments. And no one has written their name or anything else anywhere in the book. The book still has what I assume to be its original glassine jacket. The jacket has a number of losses. I've provided a couple of photographs of it along with the photographs of the covers of the book. Louis Kaufmann Anspacher was also an American poet and playwright. His poems 'The Pledge-- July 4, 1918' and 'The Last Weapon' conclude this book. Seller Inventory # 003593
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