List Price: $30.00 Details

Save: $12.19 (41%)

FREE delivery November 2 - 10. Details

Or fastest delivery November 1 - 5. Details

Only 2 left in stock - order soon.

As an alternative, the Kindle eBook is available now and can be read on any device with the free Kindle app. Want to listen? Try Audible.

$$17.81 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Secure transaction

Ships from

Sparkle Books

Sold by

Sparkle Books

Details

Ships from

Sparkle Books

Sold by

Sparkle Books

Return policy: Extended holiday return window till Jan 31, 2022

1-Click ordering is not available for this item.

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime

FREE delivery Wednesday, November 3 if you spend $25 on items shipped by Amazon

Used: Good | Details

Sold by RG Market

Fulfilled by Amazon

Share <Embed>

Other Sellers on Amazon

$21.13
& FREE Shipping

Sold by: De-light Books

$24.63
& FREE Shipping

Sold by: Fairview Books

$30.00
& FREE Shipping. Details

Sold by: Amazon.com

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See all 2 images

Follow the Author

Richard Snow

Disney's Land: Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park That Changed the World Hardcover – December 3, 2019

by Richard Snow (Author)

382 ratings

Editors' pick Best History

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$14.99

—

Audible Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$0.00

Free with your Audible trial

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$17.81

$3.49

Paperback

"Please retry"

$12.29

$8.29

$4.56

Audio CD, Audiobook, CD, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$31.68

$25.99

—

Enhance your purchase

A propulsive history chronicling the conception and creation of Disneyland, the masterpiece California theme park, as told like never before by popular historian Richard Snow.

One day in the early 1950s, Walt Disney stood looking over 240 acres of farmland in Anaheim, California, and imagined building a park where people “could live among Mickey Mouse and Snow White in a world still powered by steam and fire for a day or a week or (if the visitor is slightly mad) forever.” Despite his wealth and fame, exactly no one wanted Disney to build such a park. Not his brother Roy, who ran the company’s finances; not the bankers; and not his wife, Lillian. Amusement parks at that time, such as Coney Island, were a generally despised business, sagging and sordid remnants of bygone days. Disney was told that he would only be heading toward financial ruin.

But Walt persevered, initially financing the park against his own life insurance policy and later with sponsorship from ABC and the sale of thousands and thousands of Davy Crockett coonskin caps. Disney assembled a talented team of engineers, architects, artists, animators, landscapers, and even a retired admiral to transform his ideas into a soaring yet soothing wonderland of a park. The catch was that they had only a year and a day in which to build it.

On July 17, 1955, Disneyland opened its gates…and the first day was a disaster. Disney was nearly suicidal with grief that he had failed on a grand scale. But the curious masses kept coming, and the rest is entertainment history. Eight hundred million visitors have flocked to the park since then. In Disney’s Land, Richard Snow brilliantly presents the entire spectacular story, a wild ride from vision to realization, and an epic of innovation and error that reflects the uniqueness of the man determined to build “the happiest place on earth” with a watchmaker’s precision, an artist’s conviction, and the desperate, high-hearted recklessness of a riverboat gambler.

Print length

432 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Scribner
Publication date

December 3, 2019
Dimensions

6 x 1.3 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

1501190806
ISBN-13

978-1501190803
See all details

Frequently bought together

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Aaron H. Goldberg
136
Paperback
11 offers from $14.45
Chris Nichols
712
Hardcover
52 offers from $28.39
Jim Korkis
160
Paperback
15 offers from $9.98
Aaron H Goldberg
218
Paperback
27 offers from $10.14
Vanessa Hunt
798
Hardcover
42 offers from $20.68
Jim Korkis
113
Paperback
11 offers from $10.13

What other items do customers buy after viewing this item?

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Aaron H. Goldberg
136
Paperback
11 offers from $14.45
Chris Nichols
712
Hardcover
52 offers from $28.39
Jim Korkis
160
Paperback
15 offers from $9.98
Kevin Kern
19
Hardcover
in Performing Arts Industry
7 offers from $54.00
Jim Denney
91
Paperback
11 offers from $7.35
Jim Korkis
36
Paperback
2 offers from $17.95

Editorial Reviews

Review

“This joyful, lavishly detailed account will entertain Disneyphiles and readers of popular American history.” —Publishers Weekly

“An animated history of an iconic destination.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Snow’s smooth narrative spotlights the hard work and heart that the ‘happiest place on Earth’.” —Booklist

“Call it what you will: a fantasy, a folly, a country of its own, a city from the Arabian Nights, a giant cash register, a monument to Main Street, a saccharine absurdity, a triumph of urban design. Richard Snow calls Disneyland an invention on par with the Kitty Hawk Flyer and—in the most shapely of narratives—not only convinces us of its magic but somehow reproduces that magic on the page. A witty, wild, wondrous Tilt-A-Whirl of a book.” —Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Witches and Cleopatra: A Life

“This is a deeply felt and deeply researched story about the complicated man and his vision to create ‘the happiest place on earth.’ Snow brings a historian’s eye and a child’s delight, not to mention superb writing, to the telling of this fascinating narrative.” —Ken Burns

“Richard Snow gives Disney fans everything they could want in a history of the world’s favorite theme park, from its nascent phase as a mere faraway look in Walt Disney’s eye, to the hysteria of its opening day, with the freshly poured asphalt on Main Street barely set—and beyond. Snow is a great researcher and a terrific storyteller—and no detail is too small, whether it’s the landscaping, the design of the rides, or the way Walt Disney did (or didn’t) manage the money. As Snow tells it, Disney’s Land is more than mere history; it’s a page-turner of a suspense story, and, even knowing how it all turns out, you’ll find yourself wondering if Walt is really going to get his pie-in-the-sky project ready in time for its opening day. I couldn’t put it down.” —Brian Jay Jones, New York Times bestselling author of Jim Henson: The Biography and Becoming Dr. Seuss: Theodor Geisel and the Making of an American Imagination

“My favorite new book of 2019… brisk, smart, a delight.” —Richard Brookhiser, The Wall Street Journal

“Fantastic.” —New York Journal of Books

“The clockwork of the park — and to some extent, the personality of the man who created it — receives an expert inspection…Readers are led toward the climax of opening day, July 17, 1955, with narrative wienies aplenty and the whole enterprise is shown as a magnificent amoeba that was as much an accident as a mastered design.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Eight hundred million visitors have trekked to the so-called ‘happiest place on earth’ since its 1955 opening, seeking its carefully scripted brand of excitement and cheer. How and why Walt Disney envisioned a place where people ‘could live among Mickey Mouse and Snow White’ is carefully detailed in this new book.” —Washington Post, “Best Books to Read in December”

“An extremely entertaining story… Disney’s Land is Snow’s exhaustively researched, jam-packed chronicle of how Walt Disney conceived and created a new kind of amusement park.” —Newsday

“Entertaining…Mr. Snow [proves] to be as solid a storyteller as Walt Disney himself.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Disney fans will enjoy this rendering of the founder and entrepreneurs will find their time well spent inside the covers of Snow’s book.” —Associated Press

“Disneyland is rarely mentioned as a milestone American invention, but it should be…The captivating origin story of the ‘Happiest Place on Earth’ is well-told in Disney’s Land, the latest work from esteemed historian and novelist Richard Snow. It’s a rollicking read befitting the home of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, chock full of Alice-in-Wonderland-level surprises, with the grandeur of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, and other delightful details (Walt Disney would eat his favorite hot dog lunch from a cart, walk away, and place garbage receptacles at the exact spot he finished his frankfurter.)” —Medium

“A rich biography of a place…Snow echoes Disney’s attention to detail in this lush history of how the theme park came to be.” —Christian Science Monitor

“Every Disney fan needs to read [this].” —PopSugar

About the Author

Richard Snow spent nearly four decades at American Heritage magazine, serving as editor in chief for seventeen years, and has been a consultant on historical motion pictures, among them Glory, and has written for documentaries, including the Burns brothers’ Civil War, and Ric Burns’s award-winning PBS film Coney Island, whose screenplay he wrote. He is the author of multiple books, including, most recently, Disney’s Land.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Scribner (December 3, 2019)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 432 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1501190806
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1501190803
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.27 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.3 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #90,273 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #52 in Entertainment Industry
- #67 in Architectural History
- #287 in Company Business Profiles (Books)

Customer Reviews:
382 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Richard Snow

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

5 star		80%
4 star		13%
3 star		5%
2 star		1%
1 star		1%

How are ratings calculated?

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

D. Gottwald

Perfect if you don't know the history. Just a pleasant read if you do.

Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2019

Verified Purchase

Having read just about everything available on the history of the development and design of the original Disneyland park, it's quite honest to say that there is nothing new here. The most recent original scholarship would be "Three Years in Wonderland" by Todd James Pierce, and anything fresh has been basically cribbed from that book by Snow. All of the familiar anecdotes and quotes from the three key Walt Disney biographies (Thomas, Watts, and Gabler) are here, nearly verbatim. And if you have the archives of The "E" Ticket magazine, Snow quotes liberally from those interviews as well. It's nice to see Ruth Shellhorn's key role as formal landscape designer recognized (she gets her own chapter), because until the landmark 2016 Comras biography—and the terrific aforementioned Pierce volume—her role had been quietly forgotten by the Disney company in favor of hagiographic accounts of the Evans brothers.

Where Snow really succeeds is that "Disney's Land" is a pleasant, tightly plotted and elegantly written book in a popular voice for a wide audience. That alone is enough to recommend it. If you don't know the particulars of the story, I'd start here and then dip into the bibliography to drill down deeper. Congrats to Snow; this is basically a 'biography' of Disneyland that can sit comfortably on a shelf next to Gabler's "Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination" even if it doesn't present any original scholarship. A solid distillation.

52 people found this helpful

Helpful

Carol Peckham

Going Beyond the Fantasy

Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2020

Verified Purchase

Richard Snow is not only an engaging writer, he's also a master at describing how transformative technologies and inventions happened in 19th and 20th century America, and he makes this fun to read (even for those of us who recoil at screwdrivers and exposed wiring). Snow has achieved this in earlier works (Iron Dawn about the Merrimac and the Monitor, I Invented the Modern Age about Henry Ford's Model T), and he does it again in Disney's Land. His subjects are not always the most appealing. They can have serious flaws, and some critics believe he glosses over these. Snow's interest, however, is not so much with his characters' frailties as with their abilities not only to invent but also to engage and attract others to work with them toward a common vision.

His books in general, as well as this one specifically, produce an American story at its best. Snow not only describes with wonderful detail the personalities of his visionaries, like Disney, but also those of the extraordinary people who contributed their own genius, with long hard hours and little financial incentive, to produce new enterprises that opened up vast areas of creativity and invention. In this book, Snow also describes in detail, with elegance and humor, the technological and financial challenges that went into building Disneyland. They were typically complicated, never encountered before, and had solutions that went way outside the boxes of the day.

People accuse Disney of building theme parks that present a lie about America, a phony image that's too good, too shallow, a false façade that fails to reveal the cultural darkness underlying our history. In giving us the story of how Disney's Land was built however, Snow is showing an America with generous and brilliant workers who bring meaning to their lives by solving complex problems in harmony with each other for the creation not of a lie but of a fairy tale. We hope these Americans are still around. We all need them.

(As an added bonus, his chapter on the mishaps of opening day is nothing less than hilarious.)

13 people found this helpful

Helpful

Stephen M. Coutu

Nothing new here

Reviewed in the United States on December 24, 2019

Verified Purchase

Another pumped out mass produced book that really does not cover any new ground. Why does anyone write a new book that has already been written, stop doing this, it only kills more trees for no purpose, what a waste of my time and money.

9 people found this helpful

Helpful

Susan

What a story!

Reviewed in the United States on March 22, 2020

Verified Purchase

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The suthor's introduction to his subject, in which he explicates his connection to amusement parks generally and to Disneyland, is probably the slowest part of the story! The rest, once Walt Disney himself gets going, is memorable and fascinating! I do wonder about his original motives for building the park -- being primarily about his daughters. The way it's explained in the book doesn't sound substantial enough to hang the entire rest of the story on, in my opinion. Not when you read about what it took to actually GET Disneyland (and the plumbing!) open. By the time Disneyland opens and is a success, the initial justification seems worn thin. But it's all interesting, including how he came up with ideas and how he staked practically everything he had on finishing his project according to his plans in the RIGHT way. Definitely worth reading!

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

LISA DALEY

Fantastic book for Disney fans

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 15, 2020

Verified Purchase

Great story book, really interesting read and yes, some of the information is from other sources - but its a very well written book.

Elizabeth A. Davies

Fascinating History

Reviewed in Australia on June 5, 2020

Verified Purchase

The author paints a vivid picture of the times and the people involved in the creation of the world's most famous amusement park. Very entertaining and informative.

david bright

book

Reviewed in Canada on September 18, 2020

Verified Purchase

This is a very interesting read for anyone who love Disneyland

Amazon Kunde

I would recommend

Reviewed in Germany on March 5, 2020

Verified Purchase

Very good book, fast delivery and visually very pretty.

See all reviews

Customers who bought this item also bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Buy new: $17.81 FREE delivery: Nov 2 - 10 Ships from: Sparkle Books Sold by: Sparkle Books

Buy used: $10.27

Other Sellers on Amazon

Follow the Author

Disney's Land: Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park That Changed the World Hardcover – December 3, 2019

Enhance your purchase

Frequently bought together

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

What other items do customers buy after viewing this item?

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

Product details

About the author

Richard Snow

Customer reviews

Reviews with images

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries

Customers who bought this item also bought

Buy new:

$17.81

FREE delivery: Nov 2 - 10

Ships from: Sparkle Books

Sold by: Sparkle Books

Buy used:

$10.27