An Empire of Their Own

In 1988, a book on film history became an unexpected cultural classic. This book tells how a handful of Jewish immigrants from a very small area of central Europe became Hollywood moguls, effectively creating the screen imagery depicting the American dream.

The moguls’ identity as migrants and marginalized people was crucial to their success. As Gabler writes, precisely because of their striving and desire to belong, a former peddler, cobbler, junk seller, and other impoverished transplants concocted the gilded fantasies of Hollywood’s Golden Age. As a group biography and industrial history of Hollywood illusion, An Empire of Their Own is… show more.

Gabler offers a detailed and persuasive history of Hollywood’s first producers, all immigrant Jewish Americans seeking to achieve the American dream.

This handful of men started in New York as peddlers or small business owners and then moved west to build their own film empires. No one saw motion pictures as more than a superficial pastime, but it seemed a good business opportunity. Unfortunately, Thomas Edison owned the rights and patents that kept Jewish entrepreneurs from accessing New York, so the immigrants went west.

MGM, Warner Brothers, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, and Universal: these were their kingdoms and are… show more.

Gabler’s book is essential to understanding the sheer improbability that Hollywood was ever going to happen. It was the drive and fearless sense of empire that drove a small number of immigrant Jews to invent a global business of mythmaking.

An Empire of Their Own is a book that is responsible to leading down the path of Warner Brothers research. Gabler brings to life the monumental figures who were both grand showmen and tyrannical businessmen. If you ever wondered what it was like to create major brands like Universal, Warner Bros., MGM, Fox, Columbia (etc.), this is the book you… show more.

Using detailed portraits of the moguls who built Hollywood, this book tracks the rise of an industry while also telling a unique story about American business and culture. It bristles with insights, particularly about how the moguls (almost all of them immigrants) helped create and amplify many of the popular narratives that Americans tell about themselves. It’s wonderfully written, scholarly but not dry, and serves as a time machine taking you back to a fascinating era in our national history.