Twentieth Century Fox

'While amply providing rich and rigorous study of one studio within cinema history, Wasser pulls off the nifty accomplishment of also offering compellingly and comprehensively the overall history of the moving image in modern America, moving deftly between film, along with allied mass media, and the mass audience that, across time, made so much of them.'

Dana Polan, Cinema Studies, New York University, USA

'In his supremely thorough, meticulously researched, and well-crafted history of Fox studio, Wasser serves as an authoritative guide. He takes us on a fascinating whirlwind tour leading from the earliest days, when the Hollywood juggernaut was a mere glint in William Fox’s eye, through such blockbuster hits as Star Wars and Avatar.'

Noah Isenberg, author of We’ll Always Have ‘Casablanca’: The Life, Legend, and Afterlife of Hollywood’s Most Beloved Movie

'While amply providing rich and rigorous study of one studio within cinema history, Wasser pulls off the nifty accomplishment of also offering compellingly and comprehensively the overall history of the moving image in modern America, moving deftly between film, along with allied mass media, and the mass audience that, across time, made so much of them.'

Dana Polan, Cinema Studies, New York University, USA

'In his supremely thorough, meticulously researched, and well-crafted history of Fox studio, Wasser serves as an authoritative guide. He takes us on a fascinating whirlwind tour leading from the earliest days, when the Hollywood juggernaut was a mere glint in William Fox’s eye, through such blockbuster hits as Star Wars and Avatar.'

Noah Isenberg, author of We’ll Always Have ‘Casablanca’: The Life, Legend, and Afterlife of Hollywood’s Most Beloved Movie

At a time when it is difficult to tease apart the inner machinations and continually shifting borders and alliances within and among modern media conglomerates like Hearst Communications and The Walt Disney Company, Wasser’s Twentieth Century Fox offers a singular path through the history of mass-produced American visual culture from one-reelers projected in converted store fronts, to costume dramas screened in motion picture palaces, to VHS tapes played in living rooms across America. Indeed, this history of Fox Film Company “from the beginning to the end,” doubles as a history of a century of American popular culture; it is a deep dive into how the studio system, as an industrial structure, developed, acclimated to changes in audiences, economies, and technologies, and finally, dispersed across multiple platforms and business models over the course of the last century.

Amanda Ann Klein, International Journal of Communication review