Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ culture: gender and family; slavery and freedom; ethnicity and empire; and nationhood and citizenship". With the chariot race as its central attraction and the character of Judah emerging as a "heroic action figure", "Ben-Hur" enjoyed a wide popularity among readers, similar to the dime novels of its day; however, its continued appearance on popular lists of great American literature remained a source of frustration for many literary critics over the years. The novel had millions of fans, including several influential men in politics. U.S. president and American Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant, U.S. president James Garfield, and Jefferson Davis,
Ben-Hur (1959 film) which was released on Lion Records (an MGM subsidiary which issued low-priced records) in 1959. This made the "Ben-Hur" film musical score the first to be released not only in its entirety but also as a separate album. The "Ben-Hur" score has been considered the best of Rózsa's career. The musical soundtrack to "Ben-Hur" remained deeply influential into the mid 1970s, when film music composed by John Williams for films such as "Jaws", "", and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" became more popular among composers and film-goers. Rózsa's score has since seen several notable re-releases, including by the Nuremberg Symphony