Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando

Rating:
Summary: not an expose
Review: I enjoyed this book and all the intricacies it points out about the Disney Conglomerate. Sometimes a little tangled and overdetailed, it examines the business aspects of the Disney Corporation. Not at all an expose of actual park practices, this book deals with the big business of urban planning, politics, and scuffle over Orlando public funding. Well written for a complicated topic.

Rating:
Summary: not what I had expected
Review: I found this book to drone on and on with unimportant details names, dates, etc. When reading about certain Disney law suits, the author would give a mini bio on every detail of every person who was in the courtroom! Not necessary, I wish he would have just stuck to the facts. There are other books out there with more disney information. Not enough facts about the parks, etc. And, it seemed to me that the objective was to turn the reader against the corporation, where infact I am still very pro-disney. Too bad if every other company in florida doesn't like the fact that disney has a "monopoly on the tourist spending" It just reaffirmed how brilliant the Disney Corporation really is.

Rating:
Summary: Muckraking journalism... by an academic
Review: Richard Foglesong is one hell of an investigative reporter. I know, I know - he's not a journalist, he's a college professor. But he writes like a journalist and reports like a journalist, and "Married To The Mouse" is a terrifically entertaining and penetrating look at the relationship between Disney and Orlando.

Unfortunately - and this only a minor point, really - Foglesong is also an academic. I say "unfortunately" because the academic portions of this book are far-and-away the least interesting. They are filled with urban planning buzzwords and jargon. They try to tie together in neat academic theories what were really power struggles between a big business and a comparatively small county government.

Foglesong is at his best when he tells us how things happened. How did Orlando build those roads that lured Disney to town? How did Disney get that crazy charter that makes the company an autonomous government? How did they abuse that charter to get perks that no other private business could dream of? How did Orlando and Orange County and Osceola County shirk their responsibilities to their taxpayers in failing to more forcefully confront Disney's abuses? These stories are told through detailed interviews and narrative-style writing that makes the tales engaging reads. It is in the best tradition of muckraking journalism.

Understand one thing: I like Disney World. I've been there many times. It's a fun place. I like Disney movies. I generally root for the Mouse. But I also despise abuses by large corporations. Disney is guilty of more than its share, and "Married To The Mouse" is the best account I've read of how and why that happened.