A Companion to the Historical Film

Broad in scope, this interdisciplinary collection of original scholarship on historical film features essays that explore the many facets of this expanding field and provide a platform for promising avenues of research.

• Offers a unique collection of cutting edge research that questions the intention behind and influence of historical film
• Essays range in scope from inclusive broad-ranging subjects such as political contexts, to focused assessments of individual films and auteurs
• Prefaced with an introductory survey of the field by its two distinguished editors
• Features interdisciplinary contributions from scholars in the fields of History, Film Studies, Anthropology, and Cultural and Literary Studies

Robert A. Rosenstone is Professor of History at the California Institute of Technology. His recent scholarship has focused on the overlapping topics of new narrative forms and history’s relationship to the visual media. He has published a dozen books, including Romantic Revolutionary: A Biography of John Reed (1975) , Mirror in the Shrine: American Encounters in Meiji Japan (1988), and King of Odessa: A Novel of Isaac Babel (2005).  His works on film include Visions of the Past: the Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History (1995), Revisioning History: Film and the Construction of a New Past (1995), and History on Film / Film on History (2006, 2nd edition 2012). He created the film section of the American Historical Review and has lectured around the world.

Constantin Parvulescu is Senior Lecturer in European and Film Studies at West University of Timisoara, Romania. An emerging voice in the field of film and cultural studies, he has published extensively on issues of film and history and cinematic realism in journals such as Camera Obscura, Jump Cut, Central Europe, and Italian Studies.