About the Book
How, as historians, should we 'read' a film? Histories on Screen answers this and other questions in a crucial volume for any history student keen to master source use.
The book begins with a theoretical 'Thinking about Film' section that explores the ways in which films can be analyzed and interrogated as either primary sources, secondary sources or indeed as both. The much larger 'Using Film' segment of the book then offers engaging case studies which put this theory into practice. Topics including gender, class, race, war, propaganda, national identity and memory all receive good coverage in what is an eclectic multi-contributor volume. Documentaries, films and television from Britain and the United States are examined and there is a jargon-free emphasis on the skills and methods needed to analyze films in historical study featuring prominently throughout the text. Histories on Screen is a vital resource for all history students as it enables them to understand film as a source and empowers them with the analytical tools needed to use that knowledge in their own work.
About the Author:
Sam Edwards is Senior Lecturer in American History at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He has published widely on the cultural history of twentieth century conflict. He is the author of Allies in Memory: World War II and the Politics of Transatlantic Commemoration, c.1941-2001 (2015), which was shortlisted for the Royal Historical Society's Gladstone Prize.
Michael Dolski is a historian with the Joint Prisoner of War-Missing in Action Accounting Command's Central Identification Laboratory in the USA. Together with Sam Edwards and John Buckley, he is editor of
D-Day in History and Memory: The Normandy Landings in International Remembrance and Commemoration (2014), and he is the author of
D-Day Remembered: The Normandy Landings in American Collective Memory (2016).
Faye Sayer is Senior Lecturer in Public History and Community Archaeology at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. She has published extensively on the value of public history and community archaeology, and she is the author of
Public History: A Practical Guide (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015).
