"The single most illuminating work on America and the movies" (The
Kansas City Star): the story of how a shy boy from Chicago crashed
Hollywood and created the world's first multimedia entertainment
empire--one that shapes American popular culture to this day. When
Walter Elias Disney moved to Hollywood in 1923, the twenty-one-year-old
cartoonist seemed an unlikely businessman--and yet within less than two
decades, he'd transformed his small animation studio into one of the
most successful and beloved brands of the twentieth century. But behind
Disney's boisterous entrepreneurial imagination and iconic characters
lay regressive cultural attitudes that, as The Walt Disney Company's
influence grew, began to not simply reflect the values of midcentury
America but actually shape the country's character. Lauded as "one of
the best studies ever done on American popular culture" (Stephen J.
Whitfield, Professor of American Civilization at Brandeis University),
Richard Schickel's The Disney Version explores Walt Disney's
extraordinary entrepreneurial success, his fascinatingly complex
character, and--decades after his death--his lasting legacy on America.