Start gifting
Libro.fm for Business
Start a membership, get two free audiobooks
Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create account
Shop the sale
In celebration of Independent Bookstore Day, shop our limited-time sale on bestselling audiobooks from April 22nd-28th. Don’t miss out—purchases support your local bookstore!
Shop nowWalt Disney - Abridged
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreSeven years in the making and meticulously researched, here is the definitive portrait of one of the most important figures in American entertainment and cultural history.
From the young Walt Disney breaking free of a heartland childhood to the visionary whose desire for escape honed an innate sense of what people wanted to see on the screen, witness Disney reinvent animation, first with Mickey Mouse and then with his feature films, from a novelty based on movement to an art form that presented an illusion of life.
Gabler reveals a wounded, lonely and often disappointed man who at times retreated into pitiable seclusion in his model train workshop, yet still reshaped the entertainment industry by building a synergistic empire in a way that was unprecedented and later widely imitated.
This is a masterly biography, a revelation of both the work and the man–of both the remarkable accomplishments and the hidden life.
Neal Gabler is the author of five books: An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood; Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity; Life: the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality; Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination; and, most recently, Barbra Streisand: Redefining Beauty, Femininity, and Power for the Yale Jewish Lives series. His essays and articles have appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines, including The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Esquire, Playboy, Newsweek, and Vogue, and he has been the recipient of two Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, Time magazine's nonfiction book of the year, USA Today's biography of the year, a National Book Critics Circle nomination, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Public Policy Scholarship at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a Shorenstein Fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy School, and a Patrick Henry Fellowship at Washington College's CV Starr Center. He has also served as the chief nonfiction judge of the National Book Awards. Gabler is currently a professor for the MFA program at Stonybrook Southampton.
Leonardo Leoncavallo is an accomplished narrator of audiobooks. His audiobook credits include Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler, The Crazyladies of Pearl Street by Trevanian, and Prayer in America (One Nation Under God) by James P. Moore.
Neal Gabler is the author of five books: An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood; Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity; Life: the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality; Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination; and, most recently, Barbra Streisand: Redefining Beauty, Femininity, and Power for the Yale Jewish Lives series. His essays and articles have appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines, including The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Esquire, Playboy, Newsweek, and Vogue, and he has been the recipient of two Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, Time magazine's nonfiction book of the year, USA Today's biography of the year, a National Book Critics Circle nomination, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Public Policy Scholarship at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a Shorenstein Fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy School, and a Patrick Henry Fellowship at Washington College's CV Starr Center. He has also served as the chief nonfiction judge of the National Book Awards. Gabler is currently a professor for the MFA program at Stonybrook Southampton.
Leonardo Leoncavallo is an accomplished narrator of audiobooks. His audiobook credits include Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler, The Crazyladies of Pearl Street by Trevanian, and Prayer in America (One Nation Under God) by James P. Moore.
Reviews
“Mesmerizing . . . there’s nothing Mickey Mouse about this terrific biography of Walt Disney (1900-1966), arguably the most influential figure in 20th-century American culture. The research is astonishingly detailed . . . . About this superb biography, one can hardly be temperate. Gabler’s only obvious flaw is also his great strength–the sheer amount of detail and material he presents to the reader. But his engaging, unobtrusive prose, his passion for his workaholic subject (whom he regards as both genius and monster), and his steady march through an amazing career all inspire trust and gratitude. Here, then, is the definitive portrait of Walt Disney, the Dream-King.”-Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World (December 3, 2006)
“Illuminating . . . engrossing . . . . Gabler paints a vivid portrait.”
-Bruce Handy, New York Times Book Review (December 3, 2006)
“A thoughtful, incisive and largely straightforward account of Disney’s life and career.”
-Michiko Kakutani, New York Times (November 14, 2006)
“Masterly . . . . Gabler conveys the limits of Disney’s personal life with sympathy and objectivity. He gives a very careful analysis of the labor strike that changed the mood of the studio irrevocably as well as a nuanced discussion of Disney’s alleged anti-Semitism. By conveying the odds against which Disney struggled, Gabler makes his triumph all the more impressive.”
-Howard Kissel, New York Daily News (November 5, 2006)
“Gabler has put forth the kind of protean epic that Theodore Dreiser or John Dos Passos might have written with their all-encompassing vision, if in a less strident gear. It isn’t just the immense amount of detail Gabler deploys to give density and shadow to Disney, but the frames he uses to contain such detail that brings this biography perilously close to being its own work of art . . . . His previous books . . . ring with pitch-perfect intuitiveness about popular culture buttressed by scrupulous research and judicious tactics.”
-Gene Seymour, Newsday (November 5, 2006)
“[A] tremendously researched and eminently readable biography . . . at once vast and intimate, a skillful act of juggling enormous amounts of fact with equal amounts of rumor, myth, gossip, adultation and hype. Gabler sorts through the contradictions and gives us a coherent image of the man . . .”
--St. Petersburg Times (November 5, 2006)
“A richly detailed, often poignant, psychological profile of a visionary . . . ” —The Baltimore Sun
“Neal Gablers’ Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination is a standout . . . [Gabler’s} vision of Disney and of Diseny’s vision of America is far more complex and shaded than most other authors’, and far more objective and reliable . . . He is a lively, thoughtful writer, easy to stay with over hundreds of pages . . . one of the most readable, enjoyable, and satisfying books of this year.” —Kansas City Star
“A poised and admiring portrait . . . [Gabler offers] rich detail and exhaustive combing of sources.” —Boston Sunday Globe
“Delightfully addictive”
- John Hartl, The Seattle Times (November 3, 2006)
“Revealing . . . Fascinating . . . Fans of compelling biographies and of Disney himself will be thrilled to have this in their collection.”
-Library Journal (starred review)
“A revelatory portrait of a visionary . . . Disney examines its subject with a balance of insight, awe and empathy.”
-Pat H. Broeske, Bookpage
“Magnificent . . . an exhaustively researched and beautifully written work that is among the finest biographies I have ever read . . . Speaking of classics, this book is one. It should capture every award worth giving.”
-Cal Thomas, Gwinnett Daily Post
“Gabler’s remarkable biography lends Mickey’s creator new dimensions and sets the standard for future biographies.”
-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“[A] formidable achievement . . . Gabler’s restless eye invigorates each page.”
- Los Angeles Book Review
“Gabler has boiled down his years of study brilliantly . . . Walt Disney has been resurrected, not by medics, but by an extremely intrepid author.”
-Entertainment Weekly
“Masterful . . . his book is not simply a recitation of facts. Rather, it offers clear-headed analysis.”
-USA Today
“Every period of Disney’s life is depicted in exacting detail . . . [Gabler’s] portrait is so engrossing that it’s hard to picture the entertainment mogul playing with his toy trains and not imagine him building Disneyland in his head.”
-Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)
“We’ve all been waiting for the perfect book on Walt Disney; it has finally arrived and Neal Gabler’s done it. Wonderful!”
--Ray Bradbury Expand reviews