Not Just a Walk in the Park

The never-before-told, behind-the-scenes story of Disney’s pioneering and triumphant global theme park and resort expansion.

On June 16, 2016, Shanghai Disneyland Park, located in Pudong, Shanghai, opened to great fanfare and acclaim. Disney Chairman and Chief Executive Bob Iger called the world's twelfth Disney park “one of the proudest and most exciting moments in the history of The Walt Disney Company.” But a short three decades before, there were only two Disney parks—both in the U.S. How this unique entertainment enterprise expanded and was embraced all around the world is one of the most ambitious and successful, but little-documented aspects of The Walt Disney Company’s history.

Leading that pioneering and influential initiative was a fascinating man who, like Walt Disney himself, was the right combination of experience, enterprise, curiosity, and cultural complement at just the right time and place: Disney Legend Jim Cora. Part memoir, part cultural history, part documentary—and always fascinating, revealing, candid, and frequently humorous—Not Just a Walk in the Park: The Creation of Disney’s Global Resorts is the first-ever documentation of Disney’s rise as a worldwide powerhouse in destination recreation and cultural export; and the circumstances, events, and individuals who brought it all to life.

Filled with remarkable information, insight, anecdotes, and reflections of places, people, projects, problems, and ultimate successes, this is a one-of-a-kind recollection of a previously unknown aspect of the wide, wonderful world of Disney and how it got that way.