His most recent addition to the field, co-edited with Constantin Parvulescu, is A Blackwell Companion to Historical Film (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013) Rosenstone was born in Montreal, Quebec, the son of Jewish immigrants.
His book Mirror in the Shrine: American Encounters with Meiji Japan (Harvard, 1988) was an experimental, multi-voiced piece of history.
[2] He has been on the editorial board of several journals, including Film Historia (Barcelona), Frames (St. Andrews University);[3] California Quarterly, and Reviews in American History.
His biography of John Reed, "Romantic Revolutionary", (Knopf, 1975) was used as the basis for the film Reds, on which he worked as historical consultant for seven years.
His books and essays have been translated into 11 languages, including French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Czech, Polish, German, Hungarian, Korean, Japanese, and Hebrew.