The Road Movie Book is the first comprehensive study of an enduring but ever-changing Hollywood genre, its place in American culture, and its legacy to world cinema. The road and the cinema both flourished in the twentieth century, as technological advances brought motion pictures to a mass audience and the mass produced automobile opened up the road to the ordinary American. When Jean Baudrillard equated modern American culture with 'space, speed, cinema, technology' he could just as easily have added that the road movie is its supreme emblem.The contributors explore how the road movie has confronted and represented issues of nationhood, sexuality, gender, class and race. They map the generic terrain of the road movie, trace its evolution on American television as well as on the big screen from the 1930s through the 1980s, and, finally, consider road movies that go off the road, departing from the US landscape or travelling on the margins of contemporary American culture.Movies discussed include:* Road classics such as It Happened One Night, The Grapes of Wrath, The Wizard of Oz and the Bob Hope-Bing Crosby Road to films* 1960's reworkings of the road movie in Easy Rider and Bonnie and Clyde* Russ Meyer's road movies: from Motorpsycho! to Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!* Contemporary hits such as Paris Texas, Rain Man, Natural Born Killers and Thelma and Louise* The road movie, Australian style, from Mad Max to the Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

The road is an enduring theme in American culture; from "The Wizard of Oz to "Thelma and Louise, and from "Bonnie and Clyde to "Natural Born Killers, cinematic portrayals of road journeys continually captivate the American imagination. But what is so American about the genre and why does it translate well to some countries but not others?
In "The Road Movie Book, Steven Cohan and Ina Rae Hark collect essays that attempt to answer these, as well as other questions, about one of the key genres of modern cinema. Organized into three sections, the first, "Mapping Boundaries, contains essays that sketch broad themes and ideological tropes of the genre. The following section, "American Roads, further historicizes the issues raised in section one and traces the continual reinvention of the genre in Hollywood film from the early 1940s to the end of the 1980s. "Alternate Routes, the final section of essays, concentrates on road films that depart from the American landscape or that travel on its cultural margins to explore why the road movie is so pertinent to those who are alienated or marginalized by society. The essays discuss a broad range of films, including "Easy Rider, Thelma and Louise, The Grapes of Wrath, It Happened One Night, Faster Pussycay! Kill! Kill!, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and "My Own Private Idaho. With 44 stills from the movies discussed, this fascinating collection is the most comprehensive volume devoted solely to the genre of the road movie.