Walt Disney’s theme parks personify many of the trends that appeared in the mediasaturated culture of postwar America, concentrated as entertainment centers for the leisure society. At Disneyland in California and its younger and larger sibling, Walt Disney World in Florida, Disney’s genius for authoring modern, cinematic fables was brought to life in an amalgamation of hightech paraphernalia and scenographic artistry. Visitors to the parks are able to live for a time in something like a movie set or, better yet, a compact sequence of numerous movie fantasies. The principle behind Disney’s success was an uncanny ability to re-create the concept of place in Postmodern terms, as realms of inhabitable simulations and imagery that resonated well with a public raised on nostalgia and the vicarious thrills of the movies and who yearned for a more benign form of urbanism than the one confronting them daily. Combining aspects of amusement parks and world fairs, they purified America’s public l...