The Persistence of History examines how the moving image has completely altered traditional modes of historical thought and representation. Exploring a range of film and video texts, from The Ten Commandments to the Rodney King video, from the projected work of documentarian Errol Morris to Oliver Stone's JFK and Spielberg's Schindler's List, the volume questions the appropriate forms of media for making the incoherence and fragmentation of contemporary history intelligible.

Vivian Sobchack is Professor on the Department of Film and Television at UCLA. Her most recent book is The Address of the Eye.

Introduction: History Happens, Sobchack Vivian; Part 1 The Historical Event; Chapter 1 The Modernist Event, Hayden White; Chapter 2 Cinematic Shots: The Narration of Violence, Janet Staiger; Chapter 3 Historical Consciousness And The Viewer: Who Killed Vincent Chin?, Bill Nichols; Chapter 4 "I'll See It When I Believe It": Rodney King And The Prison-House Of Video, Frank P. Tomasulo; Part 2 Historical Representation And National Identity; Chapter 5 Antimodernism As Historical Representation In A Consumer Culture: Cecil B. Demille's The Ten Commandments, 1923, 1956, 1993, Sumiko Higashi; Chapter 6 Modernism And The Narrative Of Nation In JFK, Robert Burgoyne; Chapter 7 Andrei Rublev: The Medieval Epic As Post-Utopian History, Denise J. Youngblood; Chapter 8 Subject Positions, Speaking Positions: From Holocaust, Our Hitler, And Heimat To Shoah And Schindler's List, Thomas Elsaesser; Part 3 The End(s) Of History; Chapter 9 Historical Ennui, Feminist Boredom, Patrice Petro; Chapter 10 The Future Of The Past: Film And The Beginnings Of Postmodern History, Roberta A. Rosenstone; Chapter 11 Interrotroning History: Errol Morris And The Documentary Of The Future, Rosenheim Shawn; Chapter 12 The Professors Of History, Dana Polan;