In 1893 Thomas Alva Edison built the first film studio, a hut on a pivot which could be rotated to follow the sun. The first film came later the same year, when a camera caught one of Edison's assistants mid-sneeze. From inauspicious, low-budget start has grown a medium that has influenced world history as powerfully as history has influenced it. In Cinema: The First Hundred Years, David Shipman takes a year-by-year look at cinema's phenomenal growth. He describes the best - and worst - films from each year, charts the rise and fall of the stars, and records the staggering technical developments. He shows, too, how the century's films reflect our attitudes towards sex, religion, politics and racism.