1. The Birth of a Mass Medium -- 2. Nickel Madness -- 3. Edison's Trust and How It Got Busted -- 4. D.W. Griffith and the Forging of Motion-Picture Art -- 5. Hollywood and the Dawning of the Aquarian Age -- 6. The Silent Film and the Passionate Life -- 7. Chaos, Magic, Physical Genius and the Art of Silent Comedy -- 8. Movie-Made Children -- 9. The House That Adolph Zukor Built -- 10. The Moguls at Bay and the Censors' Triumph -- 11. The Golden Age at Turbulence and the Golden Age of Order -- 12. The Making of Cultural Myths: Walt Disney and Frank Capra -- 13. Selling Movies Overseas -- 14. The Hollywood Gold Rush -- 15. Hollywood at War for America and at War with Itself -- 16. The Disappearing Audience and the Television Crisis -- 17. Hollywood's Collapse -- 18. The Promise of Personal Film -- 19. Nadir and Revival -- 20. Hollywood and the Age of Reagan -- 21. From Myth to Memory -- 22. Independent Images.;This vastly readable and richly illustrated volume examines film as art form, technological innovation, big business, and cultural bellwether. It takes in stars from Douglas Fairbanks to Sly Stallone; auteurs from D.W. Griffith to Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee; and genres from the screwball comedy of the 1930s to the "hard body" movies of the 1980s to the independent films of the 1990s. Combining panoramic sweep with detailed commentaries on hundreds of individual films, Movie-Made America is a must for any motion picture enthusiast.