âThe single most illuminating work on America and the moviesâ (The Kansas City Star): the story of how a shy boy from Chicago crashed Hollywood and created the worldâs first multimedia entertainment empireâone 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 businessmanâand yet within less than two decades, heâd transformed his small animation studio into one of the most successful and beloved brands of the twentieth century. But behind Disneyâs boisterous entrepreneurial imagination and iconic characters lay regressive cultural attitudes that, as The Walt Disney Companyâs influence grew, began to not simply reflect the values of midcentury America but actually shape the countryâs character.
Lauded as âone of the best studies ever done on American popular cultureâ (Stephen J. Whitfield, Professor of American Civilization at Brandeis University), Richard Schickelâs The Disney Version explores Walt Disneyâs extraordinary entrepreneurial success, his fascinatingly complex character, andâdecades after his deathâhis lasting legacy on America.