A New History of Documentary Film includes new research that offers a fresh way to understand how the field began and grew. Retaining the original edition's core structure, there is added emphasis of the interplay among various approaches to documentaries and the people who made them. This edition also clearly explains the ways that interactions among the shifting forces of economics, technology, and artistry shape the form.

New to this edition:
- An additional chapter that brings the story of English language documentary to the present day
- Increased coverage of women and people of color in documentary production
- Streaming
- Animated documentaries
- List of documentary filmmakers, organized chronologically by the years of their activity in the field