In this comprehensive cultural history of the Zapruder film, Abe Zapruder’s granddaughter traces the effects of documenting the Kennedy assassination on her family and American society. Zapruder, a Dallas clothing manufacturer and photography enthusiast, planned the perfect vantage point for President John F. Kennedy’s motorcade on Nov. 22, 1963, little suspecting that he would be a witness to history. Nevertheless, Zapruder’s camera hand remained steady after shots rang out and others began to run. His 26-second 8mm film became the unprecedented evidence in the murder investigation, as well as the subject of conspiracy theories, but as Alexandra Zapruder point out, it could never solve the assassination. The author explores Zapruder’s remarkable foresight in protecting the film and trying to shield his family and the public from its worst effects; in a time when we regularly see the worst of human violence on the internet, it is difficult to recapture the shock of the event, but she does a nuanced job of helping the reader understand the delicacy required to stop the film from exacerbating the pain of losing a President in whom so many had invested high expectations. There is so much to this book—about changing technology, film as a material object, political violence, the legal implications of ownership of history—that I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.