Glued to the Set: The 60 Television Shows and Events That Made Us Who We Are Today

How did Dallas pave the way for the Reagan era?

Would Oswald have been assassinated if the cameras weren't rolling?

Who really loved Lucy more--Ricky or Ethel?...and what does that say about relationships?

You may think you know television--but when NPR commentator Steven Stark is finished pushing your buttons with fighting words and brilliant insights, you'll see in a whole new way what television has done to us as a nation.  From Beaver to Roseanne, Ed Sullivan to Oprah, Monday Night Football to MTV, Stark takes us on a guided tour of the tube, providing startling revelations about the power of its sixty most important shows and events in the history of television.  He catches in bright focus a hilarious, strange, and compelling image of ourselves as reflected on the small screen, and he shows us, with striking logic, the awesome power of television over our future and our fate.

Discover:

The most revealing and significant leading man on TV...Bob Newhart

Bill Cosby as racial trailblazer...and failure

Why The Beverly Hillbillies was the watershed program that kicked off the ongoing values debate--and the rise of the Christian Coalition

How Wheel of Fortune helped bring down communism and end the Cold War

Steven D. Stark is a regular commentator on public culture for National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Sunday and The Voice of America.  A former lecturer on law at Harvard Law School and columnist for The Boston Globe, he has written extensively for The Atlantic Monthly, the Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times.  He lives near Boston, Massachusetts.