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ALL marvel at Walt Disney's imaginative power.
His animated renderings of the world etch our consciousness, and for a moment we forget real life's imperfections.
I still remember that during my college years, at the designated time on Saturday evening, most of the class would gather in front of the TV in the classroom, for an episode of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.
Disney's cartoons, appealing to the sophisticated and the unwashed alike, can elicit laughs from adults as well as toddlers.
But Neal Gabler's "Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination" tells you what's behind Walt Disney's success and why Disney remains a cultural icon.
"Arguably no single figure so bestrode American popular culture as Walt Disney," the book claims.
This hefty volume of 880 pages is largely a non-judgmental, thoroughly researched profile characterizing Disney's aspirations, frustrations, and success.
Historian Gabler paints a detailed picture of Disney and his business, from his pioneering work on silent-movie shorts in a Kansas City (US state of Missouri) garage through his years as a household name - and his financial difficulties.
When Disney created Mickey Mouse in 1928, cartoons were considered little more than throwaway entertainment.
But Disney had struck a balance between the competing demands of making art and making money.
Now the global toons industry is variously valued at hundreds of billions of US dollars.
Four decades after his death in 1966, today Walt Disney is understandably one of the most divisive figures in American popular culture.
Disney and his legacy are a tangle of contradictions.
He reputedly cared little about making money and spent a lot on perfecting his early films, but his name has today become inextricably linked with crass commercialism and big profits.
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