Completing the landmark, award-winning ten-volume series on the first century of American film, History of the American Cinema, Vol. 7, written by Peter Lev of Towson University, covers the tumultuous period of the 1950s. The volume explores the divorce of movie studios from their theatre chains; the panic of the blacklist era; the explosive emergence of science fiction as the dominant genre (The Thing, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, War of the Worlds, etc.); the rise of television and Hollywood's response in widescreen spectacles (The Robe, The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, etc.) and mature Westerns (High Noon, Shane, The Searchers, etc.); and more.