First published in 1971 How to Read Donald Duck shocked readers by revealing how capitalist
ideology operates in our most beloved cartoons. Having survived bonfires impounding and being
dumped into the ocean by the Chilean army this controversial book is once again back on our
shelves. Written and published during the blossoming of Salvador Allende's revolutionary
socialism the book examines how Disney comics not only reflect capitalist ideology but are
active agents working in this ideology's favour. Focusing on the hapless mice and ducks of
Disney curiously parentless marginalised and always short of cash Ariel Dorfman and Armand
Mattelart expose how these characters established hegemonic ideas about capital race gender
and the relationship between developed countries and the Third World. A devastating indictment
of a media giant a document of twentieth-century political upheaval and a reminder of the
dark undercurrent of pop culture How to Read Donald Duck is once again available together
with a new introduction by Ariel Dorfman.
