These seventy annotated broadcasts present frequent BBC contributor Forster not only as a literary critic but also as a political activist, an advocate for India, and a wary yet cooperative ally of a colonialist government during World War II. Nearly half the scripts date from 1941 to 1945 and provide an eyewitness account of war. Forster comments on how the arts gallantly survived the blitz--even taking his listeners to the theater as bombing threats loom--and in other cases protests government interference in private life or the limits on free expression caused by the paper shortage. Forster casts a cosmopolitan eye on contemporary literature from Joyce to Steinbeck, enlarges the scope of European art by pairing Austen or Lewis with Indian writers, and offers pointed comments on contemporary literati such as Huxley and Eliot.