100 books like Engaging the Past

By Alison Landsberg,

Here are 100 books that Engaging the Past fans have personally recommended if you like Engaging the Past. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Visions of the Past: The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History

Rebecca Weeks Author Of History by HBO: Televising the American Past

From my list on history on screen.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a film buff and history nerd who has brought her two passions together in the study of history on screen. So much of what we know is shaped by what we watch. It is crucial that we don’t dismiss historical TV shows and films as mere entertainment and instead work to understand how history is constructed and represented on screen. I have spent my postgraduate career exploring the screen’s unique capabilities for telling historical stories. I received my PhD from the University of Auckland and currently teach film studies at Media Design School, Aotearoa’s leading digital creativity tertiary provider. 

Rebecca's book list on history on screen

Rebecca Weeks Why did Rebecca love this book?

Robert Rosenstone is the history on film guru and a big reason why I chose to pursue this line of research. Reading his work as an undergraduate was incredibly refreshing: not only was his writing was clear and accessible, but the book showed me that there was a different way to approach history. Rosenstone presents the reader with persuasive arguments about the ability of film to do history. His discussion of the films Glory and Mississippi Burning as examples of true and false invention particularly sparked my interest. Although Rosenstone has written and edited many books on the subject, Visions of the Past remains my favourite. 

By Robert A. Rosenstone,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Visions of the Past as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Can filmed history measure up to written history? What happens to history when it is recorded in images, rather than words? Can images convey ideas and information that lie beyond words? Taking on these questions, Robert Rosenstone offers a direction in the relationship between history and film. Rosenstone moves beyond traditional approaches, which examine the history of film as art and industry, or view films as texts reflecting their specific cultural contexts. This essay collection makes a venture into the investigation of a concern: how a visual medium, subject to the conventions of drama and fiction, might be used as…


Book cover of Slaves on Screen: Film and Historical Vision

Robert A. Rosenstone Author Of History on Film/Film on History

From my list on books on historical films.

Why am I passionate about this?

My eighth-grade teacher refused to believe I had read 12 books for extra credit in a semester or that works by Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, Charles Dickens, and Alexandre Dumas were among them. She didn’t know that I had long loved reading, especially stories set in the past of distant lands. In the tenth grade, I declared myself a writer, but only after earning a PhD in history did the hunger to write historical stories become a reality. Much later, I learned that historical films were another wonderful way of encountering history.  

Robert's book list on books on historical films

Robert A. Rosenstone Why did Robert love this book?

I love this book by the late and much-honored Professor of Early Modern European history for its clarity, concision, elegance of expression, and boldness of interpretation.

It focuses on five outstanding films about slavery beginning as early as the 73-71 BC revolt of soldiers against ancient Rome led by the famed gladiator Spartacus and ending with the United States, Cuba, and other Caribbean countries in the late 19th century.

The author even insists, in a chapter on the film made from Toni Morrison’s ghost story novel, Beloved, that it is possible that some written historical fiction can teach us much about the past as traditional scholarly works of history.

By Natalie Zemon Davis,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Slaves on Screen as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The written word and what the eye can see are brought together in this fascinating foray into the depiction of resistance to slavery through the modern medium of film. Davis, whose book The Return of Martin Guerre was written while she served as consultant to the French film of the same name, now tackles the large issue of how the moving picture industry has portrayed slaves in five major motion pictures spanning four generations. The potential of film to narrate the historical past in an effective and meaningful way, with insistence on loyalty to the evidence, is assessed in five…


Book cover of The History on Film Reader

Rebecca Weeks Author Of History by HBO: Televising the American Past

From my list on history on screen.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a film buff and history nerd who has brought her two passions together in the study of history on screen. So much of what we know is shaped by what we watch. It is crucial that we don’t dismiss historical TV shows and films as mere entertainment and instead work to understand how history is constructed and represented on screen. I have spent my postgraduate career exploring the screen’s unique capabilities for telling historical stories. I received my PhD from the University of Auckland and currently teach film studies at Media Design School, Aotearoa’s leading digital creativity tertiary provider. 

Rebecca's book list on history on screen

Rebecca Weeks Why did Rebecca love this book?

Hughes-Warrington has done an amazing job of creating a history on-film sampler that brings together must-read authors and articles on this subject. The book, published in 2009, introduces readers to the core debates and differing approaches that emerged in the first thirty years of history on film scholarship. The introduction by Hughes-Warrington effectively situates anyone new to the field, providing an engaging overview as well as context for the following chapters. The edited collection features key thinkers such as Robert Rosenstone, Natalie Zemon Davis, Hayden White, Robert Burgoyne, and Marcia Landy.

By Marnie Hughes-Warrington (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The History on Film Reader as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Historical film studies is a burgeoning field, with a large and ever growing number of publications from across the globe. The History on Film Reader distils this mass of work, offering readers an introduction to just under thirty of the most critical and representative writings on the relationship between film and history. Films discussed include: Gladiator, Forrest Gump, Pan's Labyrinth, Titanic and Life is Beautiful.

Thematically structured, this Reader offers an overview of the varying ways scholars see film as contributing to our understanding of history, from their relationship with written histories, to their particular characteristics and their role in…


Book cover of Screening Nostalgia: Populuxe Props and Technicolor Aesthetics in Contemporary American Film

Rebecca Weeks Author Of History by HBO: Televising the American Past

From my list on history on screen.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a film buff and history nerd who has brought her two passions together in the study of history on screen. So much of what we know is shaped by what we watch. It is crucial that we don’t dismiss historical TV shows and films as mere entertainment and instead work to understand how history is constructed and represented on screen. I have spent my postgraduate career exploring the screen’s unique capabilities for telling historical stories. I received my PhD from the University of Auckland and currently teach film studies at Media Design School, Aotearoa’s leading digital creativity tertiary provider. 

Rebecca's book list on history on screen

Rebecca Weeks Why did Rebecca love this book?

Sets, props, and costumes are not only part of the historical film’s allure but play an important role in the construction of the historical narrative; to ignore this element of screen history is criminal. Sprengler’s book gives “visual pastness” the attention it deserves, delving into the form and function of costumes in Far From Heaven and the cars in Sin City (to name just two examples). Sprengler approaches the topic through the lens of nostalgia, adding another layer to the examination of history on screen. As someone who is fascinated by 1950s history and the representation of the 1950s on screen, Sprengler’s focus on this decade is a bonus. 

By Christine Sprengler,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Screening Nostalgia as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"In this fascinating in-depth study of the impact of nostalgia on contemporary American cinema, Christine Sprengler unpicks the history of the concept and explores its significance in theory and practice. She offers a lucid analysis of the development of nostalgia in American society and culture, navigating a path through the key debates and aligning herself with recent attempts to recuperate its critical potential. This journey opens up the myriad permutations of nostalgia across visual and material culture and their interface with cinema, with the 1950s emerging as a privileged moment. Four case studies (Sin City, Far From Heaven, The Aviator…


Book cover of Making History Move: Five Principles of the Historical Film

Robert A. Rosenstone Author Of History on Film/Film on History

From my list on books on historical films.

Why am I passionate about this?

My eighth-grade teacher refused to believe I had read 12 books for extra credit in a semester or that works by Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, Charles Dickens, and Alexandre Dumas were among them. She didn’t know that I had long loved reading, especially stories set in the past of distant lands. In the tenth grade, I declared myself a writer, but only after earning a PhD in history did the hunger to write historical stories become a reality. Much later, I learned that historical films were another wonderful way of encountering history.  

Robert's book list on books on historical films

Robert A. Rosenstone Why did Robert love this book?

I love this book for two special reasons: it was written by a scholar who doubles as a film director and thus understands both media from the inside and it is the first work to elaborate on the meaning of “historiophoty,” a word coined years ago by the famed historian, Hayden White, that means “the representation of history and our thought about it in visual images.” 

In clear and compelling prose, Nelson undertakes the enormous task of consolidating several decades of scholarship in diverse fields (history, film, philosophy) to create five principles that allow you and I to think more clearly about the real contributions of historical films. Her work allows you to better understand the explicit and implicit meanings of historical films.

By Kim Nelson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Making History Move as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Making History Move: Five Principles of the Historical Film builds upon decades of scholarship investigating history in visual culture by proposing a methodology of five principles to analyze history in moving images in the digital age. It charts a path to understanding the form of history with the most significant impact on public perceptions of the past. The book develops insights across these fields, including philosophical considerations of film and history, to clarify the form and function of history in moving images. It addresses the implications of the historical film on public historical consciousness, presenting criteria to engage and assess…


Book cover of Filming History from Below: Microhistorical Documentaries

Robert A. Rosenstone Author Of History on Film/Film on History

From my list on books on historical films.

Why am I passionate about this?

My eighth-grade teacher refused to believe I had read 12 books for extra credit in a semester or that works by Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, Charles Dickens, and Alexandre Dumas were among them. She didn’t know that I had long loved reading, especially stories set in the past of distant lands. In the tenth grade, I declared myself a writer, but only after earning a PhD in history did the hunger to write historical stories become a reality. Much later, I learned that historical films were another wonderful way of encountering history.  

Robert's book list on books on historical films

Robert A. Rosenstone Why did Robert love this book?

When I first read this book, the only one on my list to deal exclusively with documentary film, I was knocked out by the brilliance of the author in locating,  describing, and naming a new genre of historical film, which he calls the Microhistorical. The name is chosen as a parallel to a written genre with the same name that some historians have been writing in the last fifty years.

Such films are unique in both their sources and subject matter. Based almost exclusively on the lives of ordinary people or small forgotten incidents, the sources for such films rely largely on home movies; films never meant to be shown to the public. Remarkably, these microstudies contain important insights into the public’s beliefs about and reactions to the social conditions and movements of the past.

By Efren Cuevas,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Filming History from Below as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Traditional historical documentaries strive to project a sense of objectivity, producing a top-down view of history that focuses on public events and personalities. In recent decades, in line with historiographical trends advocating "history from below," a different type of historical documentary has emerged, focusing on tightly circumscribed subjects, personal archives, and first-person perspectives. Efren Cuevas categorizes these films as "microhistorical documentaries" and examines how they push cinema's capacity as a producer of historical knowledge in new directions.

Cuevas pinpoints the key features of these documentaries, identifying their parallels with written microhistory: a reduced scale of observation, a central role given…


Book cover of Brought to Bed: Childbearing in America, 1750-1950

Katherine Paugh Author Of The Politics of Reproduction: Race, Medicine, and Fertility in the Age of Abolition

From my list on the Dobbs decision in deep historical context.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am Associate Professor of Atlantic World Women’s History at the University of Oxford. The history of race, gender, and childbearing is my passion and my profession. The Dobbs decision pissed me TF off and inspired me to write this list. I hope you enjoy these books, and never stop questioning why women’s reproductive lives are controlled so minutely and why their reproductive labour is unpaid and unacknowledged.

Katherine's book list on the Dobbs decision in deep historical context

Katherine Paugh Why did Katherine love this book?

It is a sign of our shocking historical amnesia regarding American women’s reproductive lives that this remarkable book is out of print. Leavitt discusses the long history of American women’s childbearing lives, moving from colonial times through the twentieth century and charting along the way women’s loss of control over their reproductive lives as they moved away from births at home, attended by friends and neighbors, and toward birth in hospitals where their freedom of choice was increasingly restricted. To understand the dark side of the ‘twilight sleep’ procedures depicted in The Crown or Mad Men, read Chapter 5 on the growing use, by the early twentieth century, of drugs that rendered women so passive that their babies could be pulled roughly from their bodies with metal instruments.

By Judith Walzer Leavitt,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Brought to Bed as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This is a comprehensive history of women and childbirth in America. Many of the basic changes that have occurred since 1750 resulted from two factors: the replacement of midwives and other female support systems by male doctors in the actual delivery process, and the movement of childbirth from the home to hospitals.


Book cover of The Fountainhead

Luis de Miranda Author Of Philosophical Health: A Practical Introduction

From my list on improving your philosophical health.

Why am I passionate about this?

Choosing philosophy at 18 raised a few eyebrows: friends and family thought I was a bit mad and a little lost. Later, when I decided to write philosophical stories and essays, I heard the same refrain: “Most people are afraid of philosophy.” But those voices never swayed me. Deep down, I knew that thinking is a powerful tool for healing, a way to mend what’s broken within us and in the world. Ideas, I believe, can spark change and make the world a better place.

Luis' book list on improving your philosophical health

Luis de Miranda Why did Luis love this book?

This book is like a forbidden fruit, tempting and dangerous. But it came to my rescue when I’d lost sight of my own dreams for a little while. Sure, Ayn Rand’s philosophy has many simplistic flaws, but in this novel, she channels a Nietzschean spirit that jolts you awake. It was a call to never forget to embrace my ambition and to continue to forge my own writing path even when readers seem indifferent.

In a world full of compromises, there’s power in refusing to settle for less than your own extraordinary potential.

Book cover of Confessions of an Advertising Man

Mark Beal Author Of ZEO: Introducing Gen Z – The New Generation Of Leaders

From my list on inspiring creativity, transformation, and innovation.

Why am I passionate about this?

For more than 30 years I have been immersed in creative public relations and marketing from campaign development and activation to effectively engaging the primary consumer audiences. Me and my teams developed campaigns around such major sports and entertainment properties as the Olympic Games, Super Bowl, and The Rolling Stones. No matter your industry, inspiration for creativity, transformation, and innovation can come from many sources including the compelling storytelling featured in the books that I recommend.  

Mark's book list on inspiring creativity, transformation, and innovation

Mark Beal Why did Mark love this book?

Often called the “Father of Advertising,” David Ogilvy pulls back the curtain on his career and the advertising industry in the mid to late 1900s.

Strategic and creative approaches to marketing that he and his colleagues took decades ago are still timely, relevant, and applicable in today’s social and digital media world.  

By David Ogilvy,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Confessions of an Advertising Man as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?



A new edition of the timeless business classic featured on Mad Men—as fresh and relevant now as the day it was written

 

"We admire people who work hard, who are objective and thorough. We detest office politicians, toadies, bullies, and pompous asses. We abhor ruthlessness. The way up our ladder is open to everybody. In promoting people to top jobs, we are influenced as much by their character as anything else."  —David Ogilvy

 

David Ogilvy was considered the "father of advertising" and a creative genius by many of the biggest global brands. First published in 1963, this seminal book revolutionized…


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Interested in Rwanda, pop culture, and film?

Rwanda 18 books
Pop Culture 165 books
Film 238 books