Power and Paradise in Walt Disney's World

Abstract

This book focuses upon Disney World in Florida as the project in which Walt became most invested, personally and financially, before his death. It examines primary themes in the history of the built environment and human creativity that persist at Disney World. These themes include: the need for community, the desire to intensify experiences, and the impulse to enhance existence beyond the everyday. These themes are extended through traditional historical forms to, perhaps the least expected one, a theme park. The book’s structure adopts that of Disney World’s Magic Kingdom park, with the preface and conclusion serving as an entry gate and an exit respectively. The first chapter operates much like the Magic Kingdom’s “lands” by offering a series of thematic investigations. Disney World is considered as a pilgrimage center, a utopia, a fantasy city, and a technological and global microcosm. Several readings of Disney World are interrelated in the book’s studies of its reach of power and function as a sort of paradise. Through this approach, Disney World emerges as a nuanced and even contradictory place that heightens the frictions of social life between the public and private spheres, consumption and contemplation, enthusiastic celebrations, and nagging doubts.