The last decade has seen a notable expansion of scholarship on transnational broadcasting and the work of the BBC's Overseas Services. Ester Lo Biundo's London Calling Italy: BBC Broadcasts during the Second World War, the first monograph to focus on the Corporation's war-time radio service for Italy (Radio Londra), makes a worthy contribution to this growing sub-field of British and media history. The ambiguous role of the Allies in Italy—as both liberators and foreign occupiers—enhances the book's value as a case study of BBC foreign-language broadcasting. London Calling Italy broaches several topics: the role of the British government, notably the Political Warfare Executive (PWE), the state’s treatment of the BBC's Italian contributors, quarrels within the Italian expatriate community in Britain, and the relationship between the BBC and fascist Italy's broadcasting authority (EIAR). To its credit, Lo Biundo's book thoughtfully uses the actual programs broadcast by Radio Londra and investigates their reception in Italy. Clandestine listening, Lo Biundo argues, initiated the “myth” of the BBC as a trustworthy source of information and “genuine voice of anti-fascism” (2).

Lo Biundo's decision to frame the book around the idea of this “myth” proves to be both a strength and a weakness. Such an approach places the book in a kind of “tradition” of historical works that have debunked certain popular beliefs about the BBC and the Second World War; Lo Biundo's approach also keeps the focus on the Italian experience of making and listening to BBC programs. It also helps highlight moments when the BBC acted less than honorably, as when it sought to prevent, or at least delay, the return of valued broadcasters to Italy. However, “genuine voice of anti-fascism” is a high bar, one the BBC cannot be expected to have cleared, and this can undermine the impact of some of Lo Biundo's claims. It is perhaps unsurprising that the Corporation continued to cooperate with EIAR up until the Italian declaration of war, or that the BBC promoted government policy over the objections of its Italian staff, even if these decisions undermined its “anti-fascist” credentials.

The first four chapters of London Calling Italy establish the context for the work of the Italian service. Chapter 1 provides an overview of transnational broadcasting, the origins of the BBC, and the founding of the BBC's foreign-language services. Chapter 2 covers the establishment of Radio Londra and its relationship to the British government. In Chapter 3, Lo Biundo provides brief biographical sketches of the Italian exiles who developed the programs transmitted to Italy. This was a diverse group that included political refugees (such as the socialists and bothers Paolo and Piero Treves) and Italian Jews (among them Umberto Limentani and Elio Nissim), but also men who had tried to accommodate themselves to the fascist regime (Arnaldo Momigliano, also Jewish, and a professor at the University of Turin). It also included members of the “Free Italy” movement, whose founder, Carlo Petrone, was unpopular among the antifascist Italians and thought by some to be an agent of Mussolini's secret police, OVRA. Lo Biundo uses Chapter 4 to investigate the imprisonment of the BBC's Italian contributors, including Limentani, who was being transported to Canada on the Arandora Star when it was torpedoed by a German submarine, killing hundreds of internees (Limentani survived). She also considers the reluctance of the Foreign Office to approve the return of many expatriates to Italy after September 1943.

In Chapters 5 and 6, Lo Biundo delves into the program output of Radio Londra, making excellent use of the available scripts, and reproducing key passages at length, in both Italian and English. BBC programs sought to undermine support for fascism and encourage cooperation with the Allies—what Lo Biundo calls “breaking up” and “making up” civilian morale (192). In the summer of 1943, the Allied demand for unconditional surrender was a special point of emphasis, despite the misgivings of some of the BBC's Italian contributors. Several programs framed the Germans as “unreliable allies,” responsible for the defeat at El Alamein, and ready to abandon Italy if it suited their purposes. Others simply emphasized that the conditions of everyday life would improve under Allied occupation. The series Italian Soldiers Programme, featuring prisoners of war in Britain, demonstrated Allied magnanimity in victory. In Chapter 7, Lo Biundo examines the BBC's Italian audience, using a range of sources, including the testimony of interned Britons and travelers to Italy, fascist responses to Radio Londra, listener letters, and the programs themselves. Scripts suggest the BBC targeted a range of audiences: working-class Italians, intellectuals, women, and former fascists. Although there are limits to what we can know about impact of Radio Londra, Lo Biundo makes a compelling case that the BBC was able to cultivate a significant, loyal, and appreciative audience in Italy.

Despite its strengths, there are notable hitches throughout book. Incomplete citations and indexing errors may irritate readers hoping to utilize this work for their own research. There are also inaccuracies, which, though not central to the book's arguments, are distracting. Most vexing is the claim that John Reith, who had led the BBC since its inception in 1922, “worked as head of the BBC until the first years of the Second World War” (26). Reith left the BBC in 1938, although he did briefly serve as Minister of Information in 1940. Alone, these missteps may not amount to much, but the accumulation of such lapses becomes frustrating.

The first detailed study of the BBC's Italian-language broadcasts, London Calling Italy is a notable work that merits the attention of scholars working on the history of mass media, propaganda, the Allied conflict with Italy, and expatriate communities in Britain. It is methodologically interesting, utilizes a variety of sources, and recounts moments of human drama. Lo Biundo largely succeeds in her endeavor to “contribute to the rewriting of the history of the BBC from a foreign angle” (3).