First published in 1971 in Chile, where the entire third printing was dumped into the ocean by the Chilean Navy and bonfires were held to destroy earlier editions, How to Read Donald Duck reveals the capitalist ideology at work in our most beloved cartoons. Focusing on the hapless mice and ducks of Disney -- curiously parentless, marginalized, always short of cash -- Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart dissect the narratives of dependency and social aspiration that define the Disney corpus. Disney recognized the challenge, and when the book was translated and imported into the U.S. in 1975, managed to have all 4,000 copies impounded. Ultimately, 1,500 copies of the book were allowed into the country, the rest of the shipment was blocked, and until now no American publisher has dared re-release the book, which sold over a million copies worldwide and has been translated into seventeen languages. ''A handbook of de-colonization.'' -John Berger ''An unforgettable exposé of the true nature of Disney-style American 'innocence.''' ---Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch Ariel Dorfman's work covers almost every genre available (plays, novels, short stories, fiction, essays, journalism, opinion pieces, memoirs, screenplays). ''He has written movingly and often brilliantly of the cultural dislocations and political fractures of his dual heritage.'' - The New York Times Armand Mattelart is a Belgian sociologist and well known as a Leftist French scholar. His work deals with media, culture and communication, particularly in their historical and international dimensions.