The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907 (History of the American Cinema)
"Massively detailed, scrupulously and exhaustively researched, copiously  graphed and illustrated, heavily footnoted, examining each period from several  critical and sociological perspectives, these three books are perfectly  representative, in many ways, of the state of academic film research today."  --Michael Wilmington, Los Angeles Times Book Review"Meticulously illustrated with frame enlargements from the original  films, trade advertisements and productions shots. . . . Musser uses these  illustrations . . . to pinpoint every development, every lawsuit and policy  change within the burgeoning industry. . . . [He] has brought dignity to an era  previously regarded as primitive."  --Kevin Lewis, Film Culture"Musser gives a new concreteness to standard arguments about the  development of an early cinema of attractions into a cinema of narrative  complexity."  --Dana Polan, Film Quarterly"Musser's work constitutes a revolution in the study of early American  cinema."  --Stephen Bottomore, Historical Journal for Film, Radio and Television