Sensing the Past: Hollywood Stars and Historical Visions

Introduction; Chapter One Tending to the Flock: Clint Eastwood, Ambivalent Wanderer; Chapter Two Daniel Day-Lewis and the Frontier in American History; Chapter Three Equal Work: The Mystique of Meryl Streep; Chapter Four Denzel Washington, Affirmative Actor; Chapter Five Team Player: Tom Hanks, Company Man; Chapter Six The Brave One: Jodie Foster, American Loner; Index

Jim Cullen teaches history at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York City. He is the author of The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea that Shaped a Nation, Born in the U.S.A.: Bruce Springsteen and the American Tradition, and other books. Cullen is also a book review editor at the History News Network. He lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.

"It's unlikely that many of us have thought to connect Dirty Harry to Thomas Jefferson or Bill the Butcher to Frederick Jackson Turner, but somehow Jim Cullen makes such improbable pairings work in this heartfelt, enlightening book. Writing as both a fervent fan and a serious scholar, he deftly reveals how some of our greatest contemporary movie stars have played an important role as public historians."--Steven Biel, author of American Gothic: A Life of America's Most Famous Painting

"A Hollywood star's oeuvre is also a map of the world and a theory of history. Jim Cullen, a clear-sighted cultural cartographer, uses that central insight to change the way we think about the movies that form the backdrop of our national life."--James T. Sparrow, author of Warfare State: World WarII Americans and the Age of Big Government

"Sensing the Past will change the way readers think about movie stars and American history. Through a series of penetrating profiles, Jim Cullen examines how actors have embodied the central themes of our past and weds them to the present. Every page glistens with insights about actors we admire and movies we think we know."---Louis P. Masur, author of The Civil War: A Concise History