Disney and the Promotions of Synthetic Worlds
careful regard for motorway access and national patterns of consumption. Given their implications for employment, local tax bases, and traffic flows, the parks are now as much a part of the contemporary debate in the UK as are shopping malls and inner city redevelopment.2 But given that they actively reproduce cultural images of time and place, they also have a crucial role within the wider culture. As theme parks become more evident the view of society, of landscape, and of the past they create might reasonably be expected to have an ever more significant role. Critics see theme parks as but the latest wave of US cultural imperialism in an increasingly Americanised world.3 The prevalence and popularity of these large scale enterprises, particularly those with names like The American Adventure, seems to support this evaluation. More convincing, perhaps, is the commercialisation of heritage sites and open air museums where financial pressures have led them to stress entertainment values, with modern facilities and a variety of places to eat.4 Bosworth Field (where Henry Tudor defeated Richard III only seven years before Columbus made landfall) has an award winning visitor centre. Video displays explain the battle and its times, while groups of enthusiasts restage the action, all reminiscent of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The Black Country Museum and Wigan Pier both employ actors in character, as at Plimoth Plantation in