History TV

This guidebook offers a critical introduction to history TV. Allison Perlman provides an accessible and engaging model to unpack the meanings of "history" and "TV," and explores topics that include documentary, the mini-series, network branding, and reality TV. Through fictional and non-fictional programming as diverse as Quantum Leap, Ken Burns’ Baseball, Frontier House, and Mad Men, Perlman’s book emphasizes how history TV shows are both sites of cultural memory and components of television networks’ industrial strategies, fusing the ethics and politics of popular history with the narrative structure and genre elements of televisual formats.