London calling Italy

London calling Italy is a book about Radio Londra, as the BBC Italian Service was known in Italy, and the company’s development as a global leader in the broadcasting industry, starting from the Second World War.

Drawing on unexplored archive material collected in Italy and the United Kingdom, it aims to understand how the BBC programmes engaged with ordinary Italians, while concurrently conducting political warfare against fascist Italy. The book also focuses on the relationship between the BBC Italian anti-fascist broadcasters, the British Foreign Office, and Labour Party. Key sources analysed in the book are, among others, the Foreign Office’s records, the programmes broadcast by the BBC Italian Service during the Allied campaign, the memoirs of Italian anti-fascist broadcasters, the BBC surveys on the audience and the letters sent by listeners of the Italian Service.