The Roots of Modern Hollywood by Nick Smedley

In this insightful study of Hollywood cinema since 1969, film historian Nick Smedley traces the cultural and intellectual heritage of American films, showing how the more thoughtful recent cinema owes a profound debt to Hollywood's traditions of liberalism, first articulated in the New Deal era. Although American cinema is not usually thought of as politically or socially engaged, Smedley demonstrates how Hollywood can be seen as one of the most value-laden of all national cinemas. Drawing on a long historical view of the persistent trends and themes in Hollywood cinema, Smedley illustrates how films from recent decades have continued to explore the balance between unbridled individualistic capitalism and a more socially engaged liberalism. He also brings out the persistence of pacifism in Hollywood's consideration of American foreign policy in Vietnam and the Middle East. His third theme concerns the treatment of women in Hollywood films, and the belated acceptance by the film community of a wider role for the American post-feminist woman. Featuring important new interviews with four of Hollywood's most influential directors - Michael Mann, Peter Weir, Paul Haggis and Tony Gilroy - The Roots of Modern Hollywood is an incisive account of where Hollywood is today and the path it has taken to get there.

Nick Smedley is a historian of American culture who specialises in Hollywood cinema. In his latest book, Smedley analyses how Hollywood's liberal agenda has fared in the years between the election of Richard Nixon and the second term of Barack Obama. For this work, Smedley obtained exclusive access to four leading film directors, who talk about their ambitions and motivations in four modern masterpieces.

Nick Smedley teaches and lectures on cinema in the UK. He is currently researching the last years of Hollywood legend, Preston Sturges, with exclusive access to the private papers of the family estate.