Any good books out there on ...

[VA_mouseman]

The history of WDW (planning, construction, etc.) or the history of Disney Corp.?

Yeah, I know there are several 'muckraker' style books ... I'm not offended by them, but I don't think that's what I'm looking for.

I recently did the KttK tour and am interested in learning more about Disney and WDW specifically.

Also, are there any videos/DVD's (?) on the construction of WDW? I have a vague recollection (and I could be completely making this up) of seeing a video on the construction of the Contemporary Resort.

 

[PatriciaH]

I have a big Disney book collection-I LOVE Disney books! My favorites are on the parks. A lot of the good ones are out of print and expensive. You might have to check the library or a site like alibris.com for them. Some of my favorites are:

On Disneyland:

"Disneyland, Inside Story" R. Bright

"Window on Main Street" V.A. Frank

"Disneyland, The Nickel Tour"

"Disneyland, World of Flowers" Bill Evans

On WDW:

"The Making of Disney's Animal Kingdom" Melody Malmberg

"Walt Disney's Epcot Center, Creating the New World of Tomorrow" Richard Beard

"The Haunted Mansion" Jason Surrell

"Gardens of the WDW Resort"

"Since the World Began : Walt Disney World The First 25 Years"
Jeff Kurtti

Others:

"Walt Disney Imagineering: A Behind the Dreams Look at Making The Magic Real"

"Disneyland Paris, from Sketch to Reality"

"Designing Disney's Theme Parks: The Architecture of Reassurance" Marling

"Building a Dream, The Art of Disney Archtecture" Beth Dunlop

"Disney The First 100 Years" David Smith, Steven B. Clark

"One Day at Disney"

"The Disney Treasures" Robert Tieman

"Walt Disney an American Original" Bob Thomas

As far as DVD's The Disney Treasures collection has "Disneyland USA" and "Tomorrowland" (with the famous Walt/Epcot movie.) The Travel Channel does a lot of park/Imagineering/ride/behind the scenes specials and they do have old clips of resorts and rides being built.

 

[WDWHound]

The is precious little written on the history of Walt Disney World (the few books I have on this topic were not all that informative), but there are some very good books on the history of Disneyland. The best of these is "Disneyland, The Nickle Tour" by Bruce Gordon and David Mumford.

For Disney World history, you might try reading Bobb Gurr's column (Designer Times) on laughingplace.com. He wrote 3 or 4 coumns there on his experiences building Disney World. For books, "Walt Disney World, A Magical Year by Year Journey" (out of print, but resold on Amazon) and "Since the World Began" (available on Amazon) both give a good chronology of what was changed when in the parks and have lots of great pictures, but they don't have a lot of inside information on the design and building of WDW.

For imagineering in general, I highly reccomend "Designing Disney's Theme Parks: The Architecture of Reassurance" by Karal Ann Marling , "Imagineering" by the Imagineers and "Designing Disney: Imagineering and the Art of the Show" by the late, great imagineer John Hench. All of these are excellent reads

 

[VA_mouseman]

Thanks to both of you for your suggestions!

 

[JimB.]

Try "Vinyl Leaves" by Stephen Fjellman. It is a very precise, detailed work on WDW from concept & visulaization through about 1990. It has a TON of source material & background information.

Please note: This is NOT a picture book. In fact, not a one. It actually appears to be written like a Master's or Doctorate thesis.

But out of all the Disney history books I have read, I think this is absolutely the best I have seen on WDW.

 

[PatriciaH]

Originally posted by JimB.
Try "Vinyl Leaves" by Stephen Fjellman. It is a very precise, detailed work on WDW from concept & visulaization through about 1990. It has a TON of source material & background information.

I like this one too. It is like a textbook-very detailed.

 

[WDWHound]

I forgot about anopther excellent source of Disneyland info. E-Ticket magazine has 2 CD's which contain most of their back issues. E-Ticket is the best mag on the Disney parks out there, with lots of inside stories from the imagineers and many historical articals on Disneyland. The CD's each contain approx 15 issues and are well worth your time. Heres a link for more info:
http://www.the-e-ticket.com/CDROM.html

 

[KidDurango]

Some good books on the history of the Walt Disney Co. are:

Walt Disney: An American Original

Storming the Magic Kingdom

and

The Disney Touch.

If you read those three in that order, you will have a very solid picture of how the company got to where it is today. Storming the Magic Kingdom is especially informative on how Michael got to where he is.

Also, if you can find an original edition of The Art of Walt Disney, it has some excellent information on the construction and planning for WDW. However, current editions omit these chapters.

 

[hAm53]

i enjoyed "since the world began" a lot.
the photos in that book are just amazing. i found it in a stack of bargin books for only $1.99.

~ chris

 

[PatriciaH]

Originally posted by WDWHound
I forgot about anopther excellent source of Disneyland info. E-Ticket magazine has 2 CD's which contain most of their back issues. E-Ticket is the best mag on the Disney parks out there, with lots of inside stories from the imagineers and many historical articals on Disneyland. The CD's each contain approx 15 issues and are well worth your time. Heres a link for more info:
http://www.the-e-ticket.com/CDROM.html

I really like the E-Ticket magazine. I have a lot of the older issues. Most of them are on Disneyland but some of them are about WDW too. I used to love Persistence of Vission too but only got 2 of my 4 issues/tapes. He said he is still working on the next issue. It has been years though. Storyboard magazine used to be great too.

 

[VA_mouseman]

Thanks all!

I picked up "Walt Disney Imagineering: A Behind the Dreams Look at Making The Magic Real" at Borders the other day. Very fascinating! That is, when I can pry it out of the hands of DS 6. I'll check out eBay for some of the other titles.

 

[Distriv]

Take a look at Designing Disney: Imagineering and the Art of The Show by former Imagineer John Hench. Its a great read.