American History and Contemporary Hollywood Film - Softcover

McCrisken, Trevor; Pepper, Andrew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0748614907 ISBN 13: 9780748614905

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press, 2005

Synopsis

First book to explore how and why post-Vietnam Hollywood cinema has sought to interpret American history Hollywood has a growing fascination with America's past. This is evidenced in the release of a rash of films of this genre in the past 25 years. This book offers an analysis of how and why contemporary Hollywood films have sought to mediate American history. It is the first book to explore, comprehensively, the post-Vietnam period of film-making, and to consider whether or how far contemporary films have begun to unravel the unifying myths of earlier films and periods. It also considers why such films are becoming increasingly integral to the ambitions of a globally-focused American film industry. The relationship between film and history - the way in which film mediates history and vice versa - is a complex one. In this book, the authors work from two main assumptions. First, that films revision events to challenge or, perhaps more typically, to reaffirm traditional historical interpretations. contemporary debates about identity politics, America's role in world affairs, and the globalisation of the American film business.

About this title

About the Author

Trevor McCrisken is lecturer in Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick. Andrew Pepper is Lecturer in English and American Literature at Queen's University, Belfast.

Review

This is an accessible, enjoyable study of movies dealing with events from American history ! this study ! deserves a wide readership among students and aficionados of both American history and Hollywood films. The essays are presented in an engaging and ernest style ! the analyses are probing and provocative: models of the kind of creative questioning that leads to fresh insights. A succinct and disciplined book! will undoubtedly find a place in the expanding canon of works on American history and Hollywood film. American History and Contemporary Hollywood Film is a well researched, well argued and generally well written work of scholarship... It brings together for analysis a significant group of Hollywood historical films... Here there is a kind of critical mass that allows the authors to make important suggestions about the treatment of major issues such as gender, race and war in both Hollywood and the larger American culture in the last 15 years. -- Professor Robert Rosenstone, California Institute of Technology 'Scholars who explore the relationship between film and history generally adopt one of two approaches: they write about film on history or they write about history on film. Trevor McCrisken and Andrew Pepper manage to combine the two approaches in a succinct and disciplined book that is intended for a broad audience. The authors deftly manage to present Hollywood dramas as cultural products of their time and simultaneously reflect on how various filmic interpretations of America's past contrbute to shaping and extending the historical record itself! the book will undoubtedly find a place in the expanding canon of works on American history and Hollywood film.' - Australasian Journal of American Studies, December 2006 This is an accessible, enjoyable study of movies dealing with events from American history ! this study ! deserves a wide readership among students and aficionados of both American history and Hollywood films. The essays are presented in an engaging and ernest style ! the analyses are probing and provocative: models of the kind of creative questioning that leads to fresh insights. A succinct and disciplined book! will undoubtedly find a place in the expanding canon of works on American history and Hollywood film. American History and Contemporary Hollywood Film is a well researched, well argued and generally well written work of scholarship... It brings together for analysis a significant group of Hollywood historical films... Here there is a kind of critical mass that allows the authors to make important suggestions about the treatment of major issues such as gender, race and war in both Hollywood and the larger American culture in the last 15 years. 'Scholars who explore the relationship between film and history generally adopt one of two approaches: they write about film on history or they write about history on film. Trevor McCrisken and Andrew Pepper manage to combine the two approaches in a succinct and disciplined book that is intended for a broad audience. The authors deftly manage to present Hollywood dramas as cultural products of their time and simultaneously reflect on how various filmic interpretations of America's past contrbute to shaping and extending the historical record itself! the book will undoubtedly find a place in the expanding canon of works on American history and Hollywood film.' - Australasian Journal of American Studies, December 2006

About this edition

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0748614907
• ISBN 13: 9780748614905
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240