In this remarkable sequel to his Films of the Seventies: A Social History, William J. Palmer examines more than three hundred films as texts that represent, revise, parody, comment upon, and generate discussion about major events, issues, and social trends of the eighties.

Palmer defines the dialectic between film art and social history, taking as his theoretical model the "holograph of history" that originated from the New Historicist theories of Hayden White and Dominick LaCapra. Combining the interests and methodologies of social history and film criticism, Palmer contends that film is a socially conscious interpreter and commentator upon the issues of contemporary social history. In the eighties, such issues included the war in Vietnam, the preservation of the American farm, terrorism, nuclear holocaust, changes in Soviet-American relations, neoconservative feminism, and yuppies.

Among the films Palmer examines are Platoon, The Killing Fields, The River, Out of Africa, Little Drummer Girl, Kiss of the Spiderwoman, Silkwood, The Day After, Red Dawn, Moscow on the Hudson, Troop Beverly Hills, and Fatal Attraction. Utilizing the principles of New Historicism, Palmer demonstrates that film can analyze and critique history as well as present it.

Volume 33 of Theatre History Studies explores war. War is a paradox—horrifying and compelling, galvanizing and devastating, a phenomenon that separates and decimates while at the same time creating and strengthening national identity and community bonds. War is the stuff of great drama.
 
War and theatre is a subject of increasing popularity among scholars of theatre. The essays in this special edition of Theatre History Studies brings together a unique collection of work by thirteen innovative scholars whose work explores such topics as theatre performances during war times, theatre written and performed to resist war, and theatre that fosters and promotes war.
 
The contributors to this volume write poignantly about nationhood and about how war—through both propaganda and protest—defines a people. The contributors also delve into numerous fascinating themes that transcend time, peoples, nations, and particular conflicts: the foundations of nationalism and the concepts of occupied and occupier, nostalgia and utopia, and patriotism and revolution.
 
These essays survey a march of civil and international wars spanning three centuries. Arranged chronologically, they invite comparisons between themes and trace the development of the major themes of war. Ideas manifest in the theatre of one period recall ideologies and propaganda of the past, reflect those of the present, and anticipate wars to come.