Events of the last decade have dramatically rewritten the American national narrative, bringing to light an alternate history of nation, one marked from the country’s origins by competing geopolitical interests, by mobility and migration, and by contending ethnic and racial groups.

In the revised and expanded edition of Film Nation, Robert Burgoyne analyzes films that give shape to the counternarrative that has emerged since 9/11—one that challenges the traditional myths of the American nation-state. The films analyzed here, Burgoyne argues, reveal the hidden underlayers of nation, the conflicts of dramatically different peoples and competing concepts of collective destiny, from the first interaction between Europeans and Native Americans (The New World), to the clash of ethnic groups in nineteenth century New York during the city’s first great wave of immigration (Gangs of New York), to the haunting persistence of war in the national imagination (Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima), and the impact of the events of 9/11 on American national identity (United 93 and World Trade Center).