Spatial and temporal enclaves remote from everyday life, amusement parks are among the favorite recreational places of Americans, who imported the concept from Europe, developed it into a major artifact of American popular culture and have successfully re-exported it throughout the world since the 1980s. Amusement parks not only provide an abundance of entertainment to visitors by featuring roller coasters, Ferris wheels, carousels, games, food, and shows, but also have promoted very contested models of ideal future societies and utopian communities, especially since the creation of Disneyland in 1955.

Contemporary amusement parks are the descendants of medieval trade fairs and European pleasure gardens of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Originally expressing an idyllic Arcadian life within increasingly industrialized urban landscapes, later pleasure gardens displayed additional features such as live entertainment, exotic architecture, impressive lighting, fireworks, dancing, games, and even primitive amusement rides. However, as their popularity...