Vinyl Leaves: Walt Disney World and America (Institutional Structures of Feeling)
Author: Stephen M. Fjellman
List Price: $49.00
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ISBN: 0813314720
Publisher: Westview Press (May, 1992)
Sales Rank: 76,184
Average Customer Rating: 4.44 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
Still THE scholarly standard...
I keep hoping that Fjellman will update his seminal book to encompass all that has happened in the last ten years; I'll be the first in line when he does. I wrote my MA thesis at NYU on Disney using Fjellman as a prime source, and have used various chapters from Fjellman's book to teach graduate classes in museum studies, design, and architecture. Students in many fields find a lot to think about, discuss, debate, and apply to their thinking.Witty, engaging, balanced, factually accurate, yet still with a point of view... a great book all around. Other reviewers who complain about the writing level, or some of the more obscure academic theorizing, are missing the point. For a truly academic piece of literature, it is written in incredibly accessible, engaging, and clear style. Highly recommended.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Great imagineer and business model info
This is not a tell all/behind-the-scenes gossip book. It reads like a business venture case file with some interesting bits of Disney design and innovation thrown in. The author gives equal wonderment to the imagineers' genius as to the company's business decisions. Also, this book was the catalyst for a to take a side trip to Celebration, Florida after our last Disney vacation in Dec 2001. The book peaked our curiosity to see Walt's real/intended version for a prototype community of the future.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Consider why you would read this book
This book has two parts with a weak relation that binds them. The academic focus of the book is about culture, marketing and consumerism. The second part is a detailed look at WDW, particularily the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and MGM. This book is pre AK. The binder is that disney is a company, that sells a product. If you think this book is interesting keep in mind if you do not want to read purely academic lecture on commerce, that could relate to Kleenex just as well as it does Disney, you are getting twice as many pages as you desire. One note is if you do not read at a high level (well above the NY Times) the vocabulary is difficult. For the Disney material alone this is definitely a 5 star book (I especially liked the details about setting up Reedy Creek), but the references from Adam Smith and Marx among others disrupted the worth of the book, hence a three. Similar Products
Disney Discourse: Producing the Magic Kingdom (Afi Film Readers)
Walt Disney and the Quest for Community
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