This important volume addresses a number of central topics 
concerning how history is depicted in film. In the preface, the 
volume editors emphasize the importance of using film in teaching 
history: students will see historical films, and if they are not 
taught critical viewing, they will be inclined simply to accept what 
they see as fact. Authors of the individual chapters then explore 
the portrayal of history—and the uses of history—in specific films 
and film genres.

    Robert Rosenstone's "In Praise of the Biopic" considers such 
films as Reds, They Died with Their Boots On, Little Big Man, 
Seabiscuit, Cinderella Man, and The Grapes of Wrath. In his 
chapter, Geoff Pingree focuses on the big questions posed in Jay 
Rosenblatt's 1998 film Human Remains. Richard Francaviglia's 
chapter on films about the Middle East is especially timely in the 
post-9/11 world. One chapter, by Daniel A. Nathan, Peter Berg, 
and Erin Klemyk, is devoted to a single film: Martin Scorsese's 
urban history The Gangs of New York, which the authors see as 
a way of exploring complex themes of the immigrant experience. 
Finally, Robert Brent Toplin addresses the paradox of using an 
art form (film) to present history. Among other themes, he 
considers the impact of Patton and Platoon on military decisions 
and interpretations, and of Birth of a Nation and Glory on race 
relations.

    The cumulative effect is to increase the reader's understanding 
of the medium of film in portraying history and to stimulate the 
imagination as to how it can and how it should not be used. 
Students and teachers of history and cinema will benefit deeply 
from this informative and thoughtful discussion.

_________________________________________________________

RICHARD FRANCAVIGLIA is director of the Center for 
Southwestern Studies at the University of Texas at Arlington. His 
book The Shape of Texas was published by Texas A&M University 
Press. JERRY RODNITZKY is the author of Jazz-Age Boomtown, 
published by Texas A&M University Press. Both are professors of 
history at the University of Texas at Arlington.


Number Forty: Walter Prescott Webb Memorial Lectures


What people are saying about this book

". . . provides a warm, welcome, enthusiastic argument in defense of 
that much-maligned genre, the historical film . . . In addition to 
absorbing essays on general topics—historical films as propaganda, 
historical controversies on film, cinematic depictions of Orientalism 
and the Crusades—Francaviglia and Rodnitzky include probing 
discussions of particular films . . . This volume is valuable as an 
introduction both to the genre and to the work of the distinguished 
scholars herein. Highly recommended."—CHOICE, October 2007