Drawing widely from books, film, and television, the authors trace the development of the American superhero during the 20th century.

As immediate and relevant as today's headlines, this book sets forth a bold argument with direct implications for political life in America and around the world. Combining incisive cultural analysis and keen religious insight, Robert Jewett and John Shelton Lawrence maintain that American crusading -- so powerfully embodied in popular entertainments -- has striking parallels with Islamic jihad and Israeli militancy.
According to Jewett and Lawrence, American civil religion has both a humane, constitutional tradition and a violent strand that is now coming to the fore. The crusade to rid...

In 1977 a single film called Star Wars exploded on the consciousness of the world. Since then the franchise, created by George Lucas, has become a global entertainment corporation. The merchandise of the original trilogy was largely confined to toys and games, but those games have since become computerized, the toys more sophisticated, and Star Wars has moved into the multi-media environment of the twenty-first century in ways unimaginable in the long-ago world of 1977. Computer games and web sites, novels, animated television shows, as well as a new trilogy of films, have all...