This book analyses the diverse historical and geographical circumstances in which audiences have viewed American cinema. It looks at cinema audiences ranging from Manhattan nickelodeons to the modern suburban megaplex, and from provincial, small-town or rural America to the shanty towns of South Africa.

Since The Theatre du Grand-Guignol closed its doors forty years ago, the genre has been overlooked by critics and theatre historians. This book reconsiders the importance and influence of the Grand-Guignol within its social, cultural and historical contexts, and is the first attempt at a major evaluation of the genre as performance.

This book provides a panoramic survey of the responses of over one hundred leading Jewish and Christian Holocaust thinkers. Beginning with the religious challenge of the Holocaust, the collection explores a range of thinking which seek to reconcile God's ways with the existence of evil.