Once Upon a Time in America: Till, Dreamland, “Ultra,” “The Holocaust,” and Recurrent Nightmares

Abstract

Four recent movies and broadcasts have brought our attention to historical episodes of racism, anti-semitism, authoritarianism, and murder in the first half of the Twentieth Century. These episodes had been largely forgotten as the history of social progress has been celebrated. New attention to past events as presented in the four works is associated with the loss of optimism in political and social trends in the present. Changes in our sense of important events in history are associated with changes in our sense of challenges and problems in the present.