Call it what you will: a fantasy, a folly, a country of its own, a city from the Arabian Nights, a giant cash register, a monument to Main Street, a saccharine absurdity, a triumph of urban design. Richard Snow calls Disneyland an invention on par with the Kitty Hawk Flyer and—in the most shapely of narratives—not only convinces us of its magic but somehow reproduces that magic on the page. A witty, wild, wondrous Tilt-A-Whirl of a book.” —Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Witches and Cleopatra: A Life
“This is a deeply felt and deeply researched story about the complicated man and his vision to create ‘the happiest place on earth.’ Snow brings a historian’s eye and a child’s delight, not to mention superb writing, to the telling of this fascinating narrative.” —Ken Burns
“Richard Snow gives Disney fans everything they could want in a history of the world’s favorite theme park, from its nascent phase as a mere faraway look in Walt Disney’s eye, to the hysteria of its opening day, with the freshly poured asphalt on Main Street barely set—and beyond. Snow is a great researcher and a terrific storyteller—and no detail is too small, whether it’s the landscaping, the design of the rides, or the way Walt Disney did (or didn’t) manage the money. As Snow tells it, Disney’s Land is more than mere history; it’s a page-turner of a suspense story, and, even knowing how it all turns out, you’ll find yourself wondering if Walt is really going to get his pie-in-the-sky project ready in time for its opening day. I couldn’t put it down.” —Brian Jay Jones, New York Times bestselling author of Jim Henson: The Biography and Becoming Dr. Seuss: Theodor Geisel and the Making of an American Imagination
“This joyful, lavishly detailed account will entertain Disneyphiles and readers of popular American history.” —Publishers Weekly
“An animated history of an iconic destination.” —Kirkus Reviews
2019-09-15
How nostalgia, fantasy, and cutting-edge engineering merged into the "tireless commercial dynamo" of Disneyland.
For Snow (Iron Dawn: The Monitor, the Merrimack, and the Civil War Sea Battle That Changed History, 2016, etc.), former editor-in-chief of American Heritage magazine, a fascination with amusement parks began at Playland in Rye, New York, and intensified when he raptly watched Disneyland, a show airing weekly on ABC that whetted viewers' appetite for Walt Disney's ambitious project. When Snow finally visited, in 1959, at the age of 12, he arrived with high expectations that, he recalls happily, "were met and surpassed." The author's admiration for Disneyland infuses his brisk, thorough history of the huge theme park, from an idea conceived by "the powerful personality of one man" to its realization as a monument to "an America where all is prosperous and convivial"—a place, as writer Ray Bradbury commented, that "liberates men to their better selves." Snow portrays Disney as a tireless and demanding boss who was "often dissatisfied with things as he found them; his preferences changed from day to day, sometimes from hour to hour." He was a perfectionist determined to build his park no matter who (his brother, for example, who balked at the expense) or what (problems building a scale model of the Matterhorn, for one, and installing a jungle in arid California) got in the way of his dream: "something of a fair, an exhibition, a playground, a community center, a museum of living facts and a showplace of beauty and magic." Snow chronicles in detail the process of finding a site (Anaheim, in southern California); hiring engineers, designers, architects, landscapers, artists, and an ever increasing number of genial, polite staff; building the park's structures and rides; planning for visitors' movements through the park, expenditures, and needs such as water, toilets, and food; dealing with unions' demands; promoting the new destination as "a place for people to find happiness and knowledge"; and overcoming an opening described as nothing less than mayhem.
An animated history of an iconic destination.