Disney and His Worlds

Disney films, merchandising and theme parks are one of the defining features of our times. Disney and His Worlds is an account of Walt Disney, the man and the organizational inheritance he left and particularly of the history and character of the theme parks. Alan Bryman looks at the whole Disney phenomenon both in business terms and as a cultural construct. He raises important issues about the parks: the significance of consumption within them; their nature as tourism sites and their representations as past and future. In the process, he questions the assumption, common in recent literature, that the parks are sites of postmodern sensibility. This book is a valuable overview of the literature on the Disney Organization and its significance to contemporary culture.