Camp: Life, Leadership, and Why You Never Stop Paddling

Updated and expanded for its 20th anniversary, Camp is former Disney CEO Michael Eisner's coming-of-age story about his time in camp and how the indispensable lessons he learned there continue to influence him in business and in life.

Over the years, as a camper and a counselor, Michael Eisner absorbed the life lessons that come from sitting in the stern of a canoe or gathering around a campfire at night. In this deeply personal memoir, he recounts his experiences at one remarkable summer camp and examines how they helped turn him into the man he is today.

Camp is Eisner’s ode to Keewaydin—a Vermont camp that four generations of the Eisner family have attended for 100 years—as well as a guide to growing up, building relationships, and developing the tools of leadership. Through heartwarming anecdotes from his time spent at Keewaydin and stories from his life in the upper echelons of American business that illustrate the camp’s continued influence, Eisner creates a touching and insightful portrait of his own youth, as well as a resounding declaration of summer camp as an invaluable national institution. With new material from the author on the continued impact Keewaydin has had on his life in the twenty years since the memoir’s first publication, Camp remains an important personal chronicle of the success mindset and of the character-building that a child can find in a remote corner of the Vermont woods and carry into adulthood.

For over five decades, Michael D. Eisner has been a leader in the American entertainment industry. He began his career at ABC, where he helped take the network from number three to number one in prime-time, daytime, and children's television. In 1976 he became president of Paramount Pictures, turning out hit films such as Raiders of the Lost Ark and Saturday Night Fever. In 1984 Eisner was appointed chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company and, in the ensuing twenty-one years, transformed it from a film and theme park company with $1.8 billion in enterprise value into a global media empire valued at $80 billion. In 2005 Eisner founded The Tornante Company, a privately held corporation that invests in, acquires, and operates media and entertainment companies including The Topps Company; has produced television shows including the acclaimed animated series BoJack Horseman through its independent studio; and has owned the Portsmouth Football Club since 2017.