Since his modest debut in 1928, Walt Disney’s creation Mickey Mouse has become one of the world’s most recognized and beloved characters. This gorgeous art book gathers original art, drawings, animation cels, and artifacts from a groundbreaking, original exhibition at The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, with text by noted Disney animator Andreas Deja. Lavishly illustrated with gorgeous art, some of it never before see by the public and published in book form. Trace the history of the world’s most famous character from the eight-minute black-and-white short, Steamboat Willie to his appearance as an Andy Warhol pop-art legend and beyond.

This is a book about why history matters. It shows how popularized historical images and narratives deeply influence Americans' understanding of their collective past. A leading public historian, Mike Wallace observes that we are a people who think of ourselves as having shed the past but also avid tourists who are on a "heritage binge," flocking by the thousands to Ellis Island, Colonial Williamsburg, or the Vietnam Memorial.Wallace probes into the trivialization of history that pervades American culture as well as the struggles over public memory that provoke stormy controversy. The recent imbroglio surrounding the National Air and Space Museum's proposed Enola Gay exhibit was reported as centering on why the U.S. government decided to use the A-Bomb against Japan. Wallace scrutinizes the actual plans for the exhibit and investigates the ways in which the controversy drew in historians, veterans, the media, and the general public.Whether his subject is multimillion dollar theme parks owned by powerful corporations, urban museums, or television docudramas, Mike Wallace shows how their depictions of history are shaped by assumptions about which pasts are worth saving, whose stories are worth telling, what gets left out, and who is authorized to make the decisions. Author note: Mike Wallace is Professor of History at John Jay College, City University of New York. He is the co-author, with Edwin G. Burrows, of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for History.

Celebrate 90 years since the birth of Disney's most iconic creation with this Welcome to the Museum style collection, showcasing Mickey's progression through art styles from his very first appearance to the present day. This curated collection includes rarely-seen artwork from the Disney archives, from concept sketches to final drawings.

From Mickey Mouse to Hercules

Published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, March 14 - June 1, 1999.

Contributions by Walter Benjamin, Lillian Disney, Walt Disney, E. M. Forster, Stephen Jay Gould, M. Thomas Inge, Jim Korkis, Anna Quindlen, Diego Rivera, Gilbert Seldes, Maurice Sendak, John Updike, Irving Wallace, Cholly Wood, and many others Ranging from the playful, to the fact-filled, and to the thoughtful, this collection tracks the fortunes of Walt Disney's flagship character. From the first full-fledged review of his screen debut in November 1928 to the present day, Mickey Mouse has won millions of fans and charmed even the harshest of critics. Almost half of the eighty-one texts in A Mickey Mouse Reader document the Mouse's rise to glory from that first cartoon, Steamboat Willie, through his seventh year when his first color animation, The Band Concert, was released. They include two important early critiques, one by the American culture critic Gilbert Seldes and one by the famed English novelist E. M. Forster. Articles and essays chronicle the continued rise of Mickey Mouse to the rank of true icon. He remains arguably the most vivid graphic expression to date of key traits of the American character—pluck, cheerfulness, innocence, energy, and fidelity to family and friends. Among press reports in the book is one from June 1944 that puts to rest the urban legend that “Mickey Mouse” was a password or code word on D-Day. It was, however, the password for a major pre-invasion briefing. Other items illuminate the origins of “Mickey Mouse” as a term for things deemed petty or unsophisticated. One piece explains how Walt and brother Roy Disney, almost single-handedly, invented the strategy of corporate synergy by tagging sales of Mickey Mouse toys and goods to the release of Mickey's latest cartoons shorts. In two especially interesting essays, Maurice Sendak and John Updike look back over the years and give their personal reflections on the character they loved as boys growing up in the 1930s.

During the past thirty years, museums of all kinds have tried to become more responsive to the interests of a diverse public. With exhibitions becoming people-centered, idea-oriented, and contextualized, the boundaries between museums and the “real” world are eroding. Setting the transition from object-centered to story-centered exhibitions in a philosophical framework, Hilde S. Hein contends that glorifying the museum experience at the expense of objects deflects the museum's educative, ethical, and aesthetic roles. Referring to institutions ranging from art museums to theme parks, she shows how deployment has replaced amassing as a goal and discusses how museums now actively shape and create values.