MHRC Co-Director Charles Acland’s American Blockbuster: Movies, Technology, and Wonder was recently selected as Choice magazine’s 2021 Outstanding Title.

In American Blockbuster Charles R. Acland charts the origins, impact, and dynamics of the blockbuster movie, the most visible, entertaining, and disparaged cultural form. Acland narrates how blockbusters emerged from Hollywood’s turn to a hit-driven focus during the industry’s business crisis in the 1950s. Movies became bigger, louder, and more spectacular. They also became prototypes for ideas and commodities associated with the future of technology and culture, accelerating the prominence of technological innovation in modern American life. Acland shows that blockbusters continue to be more than just movies; they are industrial strategies and complex cultural machines designed to normalize the ideologies of our technological age.

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