This course explores the ways in which popular Hollywood films construct the historical past, the ensuing battles among historians and the public over Hollywood's version of American history, and the ways such films can be utilized as historical documents themselves. We will consider films as products of the culture industry; as visions of popularly understood history and national mythology; as evidence for how social conflicts have been depicted; and as evidence of how popular understanding and interpretations of the past have been revised from earlier eras to the present.
