100 years of popular cinema from Raja Harischandra to Peepli Live. Bollywood Nation charts the evolution of Indian cinema from its mythological films in the early twentieth century to its world-class gangster and terrorist melodramas of today. In doing so, the book investigates why and how our films have become so deeply embedded in the nation's popular imagination. Is it merely that cinema is the only common form of mass national culture in a country that does not have either a common language or a common religion-or is it entwined with greater social, cultural and spiritual aspirations? By narrating the story of India through the stories that our films tell us, Vamsee Juluri posits cinema as the voice of the nation and examines how it has shaped our understanding of our place in the world.