E251 - Disneyland: Cold War Factory w/ Roland Betancourt

American Prestige

Daniel Bessner & Derek Davison

News, History, Politics

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2026

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Subscribe now⁠ for the full episode. Danny and Derek speak with Roland Betancourt, Chancellor's Professor of Art History at UC Irvine, about Disneyland and the rise of automation in the U.S. They talk about Walt Disney’s move from animation to theme parks, the relationship between amusement parks and industrial production, Cold War technology and Southern California, Disney’s use of automation and control, labor in the theme park, Disney World and Epcot, and more. Grab your copy of Roland’s book Disneyland and the Rise of Automation: How Technology Created the Happiest Place on Earth. Don't forget about our weekly livestream, tomorrow night at 8pm ET over on our YouTube channel! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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1:05.9	That's kind of conversation between your soul. That's conversation. To resolve. Thank you. Hello, Hello, Prestige Heads, and welcome to American Prestige. I'm Danny Bessner, here as always with my friend and comrade, Derek Davidson, and we're very excited to welcome to the podcast today. Roland Betancourt. Roland is the Chancellor's Professor of Art History at UC Irvine and the author of the recently released Disneyland and the rise of automation,
1:46.1	How Technology Created the Happiest Place on Earth.
1:50.2	Roland, first of all, thank you very much for joining us.
1:54.5	It's my pleasure and honor to be here.
1:57.5	I like to hear that.
1:59.5	So, why don't we just start at the beginning, and how did you come to write about Disneyland?
2:04.1	I imagine your situatedness, your placidness, to introduce an academic term in Southern California,
2:11.5	brought you to this topic.
2:13.0	But what made you want to write about Disney?
2:16.3	Because my understanding is your background is in Byzantine art history of the medieval
	...

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