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.
“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
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