Political scientist Bruce Altschuler, previously the coeditor (with Michael Genovese) of an enlightening collection of essays, Shakespeare and Politics: What a Sixteenth-Century Playwright Can Tell Us about Twenty-First-Century Politics (2014), turns his attention in this volume to how political film assists an understanding of American politics. As befits his disciplinary background, he begins with a brief discussion about what makes a film “political.” His answer moves his lens beyond just films that deal with politics and the political process to encompass those that consider the means by which society settles its conflicts and then work through the resultant costs and benefits. In essence, therefore, Altschuler sees political films as including, but being more extensive in number than, movies about politics.

The book, which appears in the publisher's relatively new Politics, Literature, & Film series, is divided into eight chapters headed “Political Campaigns,” “The President,” “Congress,” “Law and the Courts,” “The Media,” “War and Peace,” “Domestic Issues,” and “State and Local Politics.” This makes for a different approach from the more broadly thematic rather than institutional approach adopted by Michael Coyne (Hollywood Goes to Washington: American Politics on Screen (2008)) and Ian Scott (American Politics in Hollywood Film (2nd edn, 2011)) and by Mark Wheeler's political-economy study (Hollywood Politics and Society (2006)). The projected readership is the student market, predominantly at undergraduate level. This is evident from the author's practice of posing, without himself answering, questions about each movie after analysing its political nature, clearly with a view to leaving debate for students and their teachers in seminar format.

Altschuler certainly conveys his passion for movies with his engaging, clearly written, and insightful analyses of those he has selected for discussion, but film historians may have some issues with the organization of his material. In the Presidents chapter, for example, he assesses Gabriel over the White House (1933), Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940), Sunrise at Campobello (1960), Secret Honor (1984), Dave (1993), The American President (1995), The Contender (2000), Frost/Nixon (2008), W. (2008), and Lincoln (2012). Each movie receives well-considered treatment in terms of content and political meaning, but the volume format does not allow for considerations of broader issues that are also significant for understanding them. The historical context in which they were made is very lightly sketched, so there is not much scope for discussion either of contemporary political developments, changing historiography (how, for example, was the historical Lincoln viewed in 1940 compared to 2012), and Hollywood trends in the classic studio era, the late studio era, and beyond.

Whilst acknowledging that the choice of films for discussion in each section cannot be comprehensive and will reflect author interest, the selection sometimes appears questionable. The absence of Oliver Stone's Nixon puzzled this reviewer as it appears a more useful guide to understanding the travails of the thirty-seventh President than Secret Honor. Lacking a section on the western, surely the most allegorical genre of political film, the author shoehorns John Ford's The Searchers (1956) into the section on “domestic issues” on the ground that it deals with race, so the movie appears alongside less-than-obvious partners in The Conversation (1974), Citizen Ruth (1996), Bread and Roses (2000), The Butler (2014), and Selma (2014).

That said, there are particularly good chapters on Congress, the courts, and – a subject that usually gets short shrift in political-film books – state and local politics. The last allows for consideration of machine politics, including Preston Sturges's 1940 masterpiece The Great McGinty, along with two more happily positioned westerns in High Noon (1951) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962).

All told, the political-science perspective of the author helps to make this an interesting examination of political film and he poses some very good questions for student debate. This is an engaged and engaging volume that can be recommended for American studies and American film courses.