| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.4

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11: How One Film Divided a Nation. By Robert Brent Toplin. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006. 161 pp. $24.95, ISBN 0-7006-1452-4.)
The subtitle of this nice little book is a bit deceptive, for the author tells us less about how Michael Moore's film divided a nation than about how an already divided nation received Moore's film. The book is thus both something of an audience study and a more traditional look at the content and meaning of the film. Robert Brent Toplin deftly combines both topics and produces a book that, while brief, is thorough, painstaking, and complete.	1
There is no doubt that Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) is an important subject. It was the first documentary to be a major hit in Hollywood terms, and Toplin presents convincing evidence that players from both the Right and the Left judged it to be at least potentially influential in the 2004 election. He correctly notes that determining the actual extent and nature of that influence is probably impossible (p. 121), but adds that it did contribute to the debate about George W. Bush's behavior in office, especially his actions leading to and prosecuting the war in Iraq.	. . .

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