{"podcast":{"title":"New Books in Communications","slug":"new-books-in-communications-408774","podcast_index_feed_id":408774,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/LIT1384621729","website_url":"https://newbooksnetwork.com/category/politics-society/communications/","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/1bb7b7f6-ef86-11e8-9a06-37c6ac8354be/image/6fbb3983a600dfcc86187dba32db8e5b.png?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"New Books Network","episode_count":1910,"summary":"This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications","last_synced_at":"2026-06-26T10:18:31.762101+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-communications-408774"},"episode":{"title":"Thomas Doherty, \"How Film Became History: The Rise of the Archival Documentary in 1930s America\" (Columbia UP, 2026)","slug":"thomas-doherty-how-film-became-history-the-rise-of-the-archival-documentary-in-1930s-america-columbia-up-2026","published_at":"2026-05-20T08:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-communications-408774/thomas-doherty-how-film-became-history-the-rise-of-the-archival-documentary-in-1930s-america-columbia-up-2026","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-communications-408774","url":"https://pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK7585925630.mp3","audio_url":"https://pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK7585925630.mp3","summary":"By the 1930s, filmmakers had access to a backlog of footage from nearly forty years of motion pictures, allowing them to create a new kind of film stitched together from the raw material of older films. At around the same time, the transition to synchronous sound added a transformative new element to the grammar of cinema: the voiceover narration. Together, the film inventory and offscreen commentary gave rise to the archival documentary, the motion picture genre that preserves and rewinds history. In How Film Became History: The Rise of the Archival Documentary in 1930s America (Columbia University Press, 2026), Dr. Thomas Doherty tells the story of the archival documentary, spotlighting the first films that set out deliberately to preserve history on screen. He shows how newsreels and documentaries challenged the era’s restrictive censorship and how film began to engage with the great political issues of the day. Doherty considers a range of films—some well-known, others obscure—including J. Stuart Blackton’s The Film Parade (1933), Laurence Stallings and Truman Talley’s The First World War (1934), Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr.’s Hitler’s Reign of Terror (1934), Max Eastman and Herbert Axelbank’s Tsar to Lenin (1937), and the March of Time screen magazine. Tracing the creation of the archival documentary, How Film Became History illuminates how motion pictures have come to shape our vision of the past. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your…","meta_description":"By the 1930s, filmmakers had access to a backlog of footage from nearly forty years of motion pictures, allowing them to create a new kind of film stitche…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2294,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/new-books-in-communications-408774/episodes/thomas-doherty-how-film-became-history-the-rise-of-the-archival-documentary-in-1930s-america-columbia-up-2026/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-communications-408774/thomas-doherty-how-film-became-history-the-rise-of-the-archival-documentary-in-1930s-america-columbia-up-2026.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}