Walter Elias "Walt" Disney - artist, entrepreneur, innovator, filmmaker, and theme-park impresario - gave birth to a sprawling entertainment enterprise that, in the half-century since his death in 1966, remains a fixture in the culture unlike any other. A titan of the American Century, Walt Disney was also one of its most contradictory figures. A genius who got only as far as the ninth grade, he seemed to be many things other than what he really was. One of Hollywood's most successful men,...

Elvis Presley was unique. "I don't sound like nobody," he said before he was anybody, and John Lennon, whose Beatles would later create their own mania in the world, would offer the tribute: "Before Elvis, there was nothing." Elvis, writes New York Times bestselling author Rees Quinn, was the world's first superstar, but that couldn't erase the scars of a childhood filled with poverty, humiliation, loneliness, and shame. He tried to buy happiness but failed. With his leather, gold, and ivo...

To what extent did Europeanisation contribute to Ireland’s transformation from ‘poor relation’ to ‘peer idol’? This book examines how Europeanisation affected Irish policy-making and implementation and how Ireland maximised the policy opportunities arising from membership of the EU while preserving embedded patterns of political behaviour. It focuses on the complex interplay of European, domestic and global factors as the explanation for the changing character of the ‘Celtic Tiger’.