This is the definitive and singular account of an epic theme park mania that roiled East Asia for three decades. Beginning in the 1990s, Japan, Korea, and China were gripped by a feverish pursuit of theme park grandeur. Over the next 30 years, developers and visionaries across East Asia built, dreamed, and destroyed some of the largest, most fantastical wonderlands ever conceived. Japan: an overview of its theme park mania, which began in the late 1980s in the aftermath of the nation's stock market and property bubble. For the next decade, developers desperately poured billions of dollars into attractions, hoping to turn their fortunes around.

Korea: optimism prevailed in the country's recovery from the Asian Financial Crisis. In 2004, there were five outdoor theme parks in Korea. By 2008, there were over 40 new proposed theme parks across the country.

China: in the early 1990s, private property and theme parks entered China at the same time. This "real estate + theme park" model became the defining property development model, one that resulted in 70% of theme parks losing money for the next three decades. Undeterred, property developers continued building theme parks by the thousands, culminating in over $100 billion dollars' worth of stupendous world-building dreams.

The closing sections contain a reflection on the potential enduring cyclicality of theme park manias, a data-driven summary of theme park economics, and the quandaries facing those who seek to develop them, and the author's personal account of what happened in the end.