A concerned investigation of the curious relationship between Hollywood and the US Department of Defense that exposes some distressing collaborations.

Directors of war and action movies receive access to billions of dollars worth of military equipment and personnel, but it comes with a hidden cost. As a veteran Hollywood journalist shows, the final product is often not just what the director intends but also what the powers-that-be in the military want to project about America's armed forces.

Here is the new, hip, high-tech military-industrial complex--an omnipresent, hidden-in-plain-sight system of systems that penetrates all our lives. From iPods to Starbucks to Oakley sunglasses, historian Nick Turse explores the Pentagon's little-noticed contacts (and contracts) with the products and companies that now form the fabric of America. Turse investigates the remarkable range of military incursions into the civilian world: the Pentagon's collaborations with Hollywood filmmakers; its outlandish schemes to weaponize the wild kingdom; its joint ventures with the World Wrestling Federation and NASCAR. He shows the inventive ways the military, desperate for new recruits, now targets children and young adults, tapping into the "culture of cool" by making "friends" on MySpace. We are a long way from Eisenhower's military-industrial complex: this is its twenty-first-century progeny.--From publisher description.

For generations, movies and television have been sources of entertainment that have shaped the countrys consciousness. Washington, DC, Film and Television chronicles popular and obscure films and television programs that feature Washington, DC. Sharing the sites, neighborhoods, institutions, and monuments that filmmakers used as their settings, this exciting title takes readers behind the scenes of classic movies, including Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Houseboat, and The Exorcist. Familiar television programs that transmitted local news and information are featured alongside photographs of some of Hollywoods greatest stars. With the nations capital as a backdrop, the landscape, architecture, and history of Washington have always and will continue to make it an aesthetically exciting and authentic locale for the many story lines of Hollywood.

The newly expanded and revised edition of The Hollywood War Machine includes wide-ranging exploration of numerous popular military-themed films that have appeared in the close to a decade since the first edition was published. Within the Hollywood movie community, there has not been even the slightest decline in well-financed pictures focusing on warfare and closely-related motifs. The second edition includes a new chapter on recent popular films and another that analyzes the relationship between these movies and the bourgeoning gun culture in the United States, marked in recent years by a dramatic increase in episodes of mass killings.

Brownstein explores the intimate connections between Hollywood and Washington that have radically transformed American political culture. Here for the first time appears a secret history of mutual influence and admiration, in a world where stars are pursued to generate money and votes. 8 pages of photos.