Oliver Stone Encyclopedia

From: James Welsh <[email protected]>


2013StonePleaForH-film ** ****

“AUTHORSHIP AND ITS DISCONTENTS” ****

By Jim Welsh, Salisbury U Emeritus****
No “modest” rejoinder, this, and certainly not a wimpy apology.  Rather,
this is a self-promotional plea from two academics who just want to be
read, for that is why one writes books, after all, isn’t it, to be read and
perhaps to be understood; but, sadly, not all books are equally promoted or
even widely distributed, hence our sublime frustration.  Donald Whaley and
I have published one such book, THE OLIVER STONE ENCYCLOPEDIA (Scarecrow
Press, 2013) because we believe Stone’s recent work deserves attention.  It’s
been over ten years now since the last critical book on Oliver Stone was
published.  Well, ours is currently available (for, regrettably, $80), but
Scarecrow titles are specialized, intended mainly for library consumption,
and you’ll not find Scarecrow titles inventoried at your local Barnes &
Noble, even though we think we have something new—perhaps even original—to
say about Stone and his worldview, influenced (as we can vividly
demonstrate) by the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche and also by the
writer-director’s conversion to Buddhism.  Oliver Stone is not simply a
kneejerk liberal, though some have dismissed him as such; no, he is an
original thinker, as witnessed by his current Showtime television series
THE UNTOLD HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, and by a number of feature films
touching upon American history and biography; responding to the corruption
of business, industry, sports, the military, and the media, and to a
stupidly blind belief in American exceptionalism that has shaped the way
history is presented in propagandistic patriotic textbooks.  To document or
dispute that vision, one can buy the companion trade volume for THE UNTOLD
HISTORY by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick at your local Barnes & Noble.   But
we believe that our book may also help to justify (and even clarify) some
of the conclusions of that UNTOLD HISTORY.  Both books, we hope, will be
discussed and debated at a Stone panel to be featured at the forthcoming
national conference of the Popular Culture Association in Washington, DC,
during Easter week of 2013.  Can such a book as ours be rescued from the
Reference Room (if libraries still feature “reference rooms”) through
public debate?  Our Stone panel will be scheduled for PCA, so we’ve been
told, and the players are being aligned.  We are hoping that this could be
the start of something Big