American Film and Society Since 1945

Although films rarely act as mirror reflections of everyday reality, they are, nevertheless, powerful cultural expressions of the dreams and desires of the American public. In the third edition of their seminal work, Leonard Quart and Albert Auster provide a complete post-World War II survey of American cinema and its often complex and contradictory values. No other work provides such an exhaustive and rigorous account of this parallel history of the United States, and the breadth and depth of this latest edition will hold appeal for scholars, students, and general readers alike.

LEONARD QUART is Professor of Cinema Studies at the College of Staten Island and at the CUNY Graduate Center. His essays and articles have appeared in Film Quarterly, Dissent, The Forward, and London Magazine, among others, and for over twenty years, he has been an editor and contributing editor of Cineaste. He is the co-author of books including The Films of Mike Leigh and How the War was Remembered: Hollywood and Vietnam (Praeger, 1988).ALBERT AUSTER is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University and a research associate at the McGannon Communications Research Center. He is a frequent contributor to Television Quarterly, The Journal of Popular Film and Television, and other journals, and is the author or co-author of books including How the War was Remembered: Hollywood and Vietnam (Praeger, 1988).