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In Amusement, Inc., Roland Betancourt tells the deep history of Disneyland from its conception to its construction and reveals how it set the precedents that created the modern theme park. To transform an animation studio into a theme park company, Betancourt shows that Disney took its most significant lessons not from other amusement parks of the time but from corporations like General Motors, marshaling funds to systematize the constellation of principles, practices, and structures that defined American Big Business during the 1950s and 1960s. By using these principles to construct a heroic image of the large-scale corporation, Disneyland acclimated Americans to the rhythms and values of corporate capitalism, rendering the corporation's apparatus synonymous with “the good life” in postwar America. Drawing on extensive archival research, Amusement, Inc. reframes the invention of the theme park, offering a new history of how corporate practices shaped the spaces of leisure and entertainment that have defined contemporary American culture.

An intriguing look at secrecy during the Byzantine Empire and the role of the art historian in seeking truth.

Secrecy has played a role throughout human history and continues to capture the popular imagination. Some of the most seductive aspects of the Byzantine Empire—such as the relics of the imperial palace and the military uses of Greek fire—have been shrouded in mystery for centuries. This book provides a brief history of secrecy in Byzantium and examines the role of the art historian in uncovering the truth, demonstrating how visual evidence can not only reveal new findings but also purposely conceal answers.

Art historians face many challenges in their search for hidden knowledge, including accessing accounts preserved in fragmentary glimpses and reconciling how practices of speculation and reconstruction result in different, and sometimes contradictory, understandings. With pressing urgency, this book asks scholars to consider their role in articulating the stories of marginalized people, particularly for queer and trans history.

At the core of these investigations is the quest to discover how clandestine knowledge was transmitted and how relationships were strengthened by collective secret keeping, as well as how concealment is used as a strategy for exercising power. With insights into the religious, imperial, military, and cultural uses of secrecy, this book offers an intriguing look at the ways secrecy manifested itself during the Byzantine Empire and the implications it has for the issues we face today.