Recommended reading – Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film by Erik Barnouw (1993):

Documentary:

A History of the Non-Fiction Film

By Erik Barnouw.

2nd Revised Edition.

Published by Oxford University Press.

Published 1993.

ISBN-10: 0195078985

ISBN-13: 978-0195078985

A helpful antidote to the spirit … It presents sign posts to where documentary could be and where it may emerge. Barnouw's style has a clarity and precision that make his books delights to read. – Film Quarterly.

Now brought completely up to date, the new edition of this classic work on documentary films and filmmaking surveys the history of the genre from 1895 to the present day. With the myriad social upheavals over the past decade, documentaries have enjoyed an international renaissance; here Barnouw considers the medium in the light of an entirely new political and social climate. He examines as well the latest filmmaking technology, and the effects that video cassettes and cable television are having on the production of documentaries. And like the previous editions, Documentary is filled with photographs, many of them rare, collected during the author's travels around the world. Covering the full course of the documentary from Louis Lumiere's first effort to recent landmark productions such as Shoah, this book makes the growing importance of a unique blend of art and reality accessible and understandable to all film lovers.