How do perceptions of the past‎-not just of particular events‎,‎ but of the trajectory of history as a whole‎-shape our experience of the world‎?‎ To answer this ‎(‎and other‎)‎ questions‎,‎ Jim Cullen looks closely at the work of what might be considered an unlikely source of historical insight‎-the work of six major Hollywood stars‎.‎ Indeed‎,‎ Cullen offers a fascinating portrait of pivotal movements that have shaped our history as reflected in the work of Clint Eastwood‎,‎ Daniel Day‎-Lewis‎,‎ Denzel Washington‎,‎ Tom Hanks‎,‎ Meryl Streep‎,‎ and Jodie Foster‎.‎ By focusing on the career choices made by these powerful actors‎,‎ all of whom have the rare ability to put their personal stamp on their work‎,‎ Cullen reveals a discrete set of historical narratives‎,‎ including a surprising strain of Jeffersonian communitarianism that runs through Eastwood‎'‎s work‎,‎ a sense of how the frontier shaped American character as reflected in the roles chosen by Day‎-Lewis‎,‎ the Lincoln‎-styled belief in institutions and the power of ordinary people that runs through the films of Tom Hanks ‎(‎like Jimmy Stewart before him‎)‎‎,‎ and the history of liberal feminism of the last century captured in the movies of Meryl Streep‎.‎ That these historical patterns emerge in the work of these six artists‎-almost certainly unintentionally‎-sheds much light on the way that‎,‎ for all of us‎,‎ historical forces can shape our understanding of the world without our being aware of them‎.‎