Movies And American Society

The second edition of "Movies and American Society" is a comprehensive collection of essays and primary documents that explore the ways in which movies have changed--and been changed by--American society from 1905 to the present.Each chapter includes an introduction, discussion questions, an essay examining the issues of the period, primary documents, and a list of further reading and screeningsIncludes a new chapter on "American Film in the Age of Terror" and new essays for Chapter 9 ("Race, Violence, and Film") and Chapter 13 ("Hollywood Goes Global"), as well as updated Reading and Screenings sectionsDiscusses all the major periods in American film history from the first nickelodeons to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the globalization of HollywoodDemonstrates the unique influence of movies on all aspects of American culture, from ideology, politics, and gender to class, war, and race relationsEngaging and accessible for students, with jargon-free essays and primary documents that show social practices and controversies as well as the fun and cultural influence of movies and movie-going

Steven J. Ross is Professor of History at the University of Southern California. He is co-director of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities and author of Workers On the Edge: Work, Leisure, and Politics in Industrializing Cincinnati, 1788-1890 (1985), Working-Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America (1998), and Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics (2011). Ross is the recipient of the Theater Library Association Book Award and a Film Scholars Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.