Book excerpt: The Screen Decades: American Culture/American Cinema series is now available as an eleven-volume set: American Cinema from the 1890 to the 2000s. Each volume presents a group of original essays analyzing the impact of cultural issues on the cinema and the impact of the cinema on society. Because every chapter explores a spectrum of particularly significant motion pictures and the broad range of historical events in one year, readers will gain a continuing sense of the decade as it came to be depicted on movie screens across the nation. The integration of historical and cultural events with the sprawling progression of American cinema illuminates the pervasive themes and essential movies that define an era. The series represents one among many possible ways of confronting the past and understanding the connections between American culture and film history.