[...] Revisited are debates as to whether or not noir is a European or American style; and on the degree to which noir is confined to its particular historical moment, and thus only ‘readable’ within that frame. Silver asserts, quite in keeping with earlier research, that film noir seems to be ‘a body of films that not only presents a relatively cohesive vision of America but that does so in a manner transcending the influences of auteurism or genre ... film noir is a self-contained reflection of American culture and its preoccupations at a point in time. As such it is a unique example of a wholly American film style’ (p. 6). Two of the more interesting issues raised at the end of the book include the relationship of film noir to TV noir, including shows such as Miami Vice, and the relationship of recent films — what Jeremy Butler calls ‘tech-noir’ and ‘neo-noir’ — to 40s film noir (Butler, 1996: 289-306).