Book: Disney’s Land: Walt Disney and the invention of the Amusement Park That Changed the World
Author: Richard Snow
Release Date: December 2019
Source: Hardcover bought At Barnes & Noble
Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

I love Disney. Let me just be clear about that. I know it’s “cool” right now to criticize Disney (the company as a whole). I see comments and articles all over Twitter and Facebook and such about how horrible the company is, or how the Academy Awards are rigged to give them (more specifically Pixar) the Animated Feature Award every year, or how badly they treat their park employees, etc. I know all these things, and I agree with plenty (though not all) of them. There are many issues with the company as a whole that need to be addressed. Absolutely.

But I still LOVE Disney. Most little kids do, but many adults grow out of it. I never did. I never will. I have no wish to do so. It’s practically a religion to me. I love the movies (most of the time… no, I did not go see the live-action Aladdin nor the “live-action”-but-really-CGI Lion King). I love the tv programs. I love the Marvel movies (despite their many flaws). I haven’t entirely loved what they’ve done to the Star Wars films, but… *shrug* I ADORE the parks. I have loads and loads of Disney merchandise – art books and prints and dolls and pins and and and…

All this is to say: OF COURSE I was going to buy Richard Snow’s new book about the invention and design of Disneyland. And OF COURSE I was going to love it.

Now, Richard Snow is a well respected journalist, editor, and history writer. He has worked a quite a few documentaries including the Burns’ brothers’ The Civil War. And his last book, Iron Dawn: The Monitor, the Merrimack, and the Civil War Sea Battle That Changed History, won a prize for Naval Literature. So perhaps it was a bit odd that a history writer who has written about such serious topics would choose to write about something as “frivolous” as Disneyland. Thankfully, Richard Snow happens to be a HUGE fan of theme parks, and Disneyland in particular, and thankfully his editor and agent give him full rein to explore this topic, and thankfully he knew and PROVED that Disneyland is not such a frivolous topic after all.

His book Disney’s Land: Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park That Changed the World, is an enormously well-researched deep-dive into not only the park itself, but Walt Disney’s life and frame-of-mind leading up to and during the build of Disneyland, as well as providing snippets into the lives of the many many people (animators, designers, “imagineers”) who made Disneyland possible, all while also keeping the narrative deeply grounded and rooted in its context of post-WW2 1950s America.

To say this book is thorough and filled with more research – primary, secondary, interviews, etc – than you can shake a stick at would be a massive understatement. The bibliographies section is 7 pages long (in small print!) and has given me a mind-bogglingly huge new goal to find and read as many of the materials cited in the book as possible. But more than that, this book is also delightfully well-written: the prose is smart, and entertaining, and often very funny. And Richard Snow approaches the subject with so much respect and love, while remaining balanced, honest, and fair about Walt Disney’s (and others) faults and shortcomings, that I believe even the most hardened anti-Disney heart MUST come away with at least a LITTLE respect for the overall concept and project of Disneyland, and the men and women who made it possible.

If you, like me, love Disney. You absolutely definitely must read this book. If you are a tepid about Disney, I think even YOU might enjoy this read. I also believe that anyone in a creative business would find this book highly enlightening, inspiring, and possibly instructive. So get to it people!

(Next on my list of nonfiction – I read a LOT of nonfiction – is a book on a related topic to this one. It is The Queens of Animation by Nathalia Holt, which is about the women who worked for Disney Animation often with little or no recognition in the early days. One of my favorites of these women is Mary Blair. I’m really looking forward to this book!)