ENTERTAINMENT : Disney Unsure How It Will Organize New Theme Park : Development: Officials debate concerns raised about oversimplifying U.S. history.

Walt Disney Co. is moving away from organizing its proposed park in Prince William County, Va., around nine history-themed “territories,” such as the Civil War and slavery, prompted in part by historians’ concern that the familiar Disney theme park concept could oversimplify the past.

Instead of being built around topics including the family farm and Ellis Island immigrants, for example, the park could instead stress a handful of American values or cultural themes, which might include diversity, how conflicts have united the country or how Americans have responded to technological change, company executives say.

The shift underscores the complexity and risk involved as the company prepares to invest at least $650 million in Disney’s America, intended to package fun with education for families on vacation.

Since November, when the project was unveiled, Disney executives, from Chairman Michael Eisner down, have stressed that its content remains undecided and that they expected debate over their handling of American history.

Critics attacked the company’s plans for portraying slavery after one official said the park would allow visitors to feel what it was like to be a slave.

Eisner later called that statement presumptuous.

Robert Weis, head of the park design team and senior vice president of Walt Disney Imagineering, would not give specific examples of potential changes to the park concept Tuesday. However, he said Disney is studying how Americans face the same issues time and again.

“One of the things I’ve started to gravitate to is that no American story has a beginning or an end,” he said. “They have roots in an early period, they have dynamic points and . . . a lot of themes run through our history.”

Though he said he does not believe the company is abandoning its original concept of the park, Weis said, “I’m not sure we have a certain direction yet. . . . Our thoughts are evolving.”

A Disney consultant said his intent is to avoid letting the company’s talent for popularizing fantasy stories simplify or compartmentalize the American past, which might lead to stereotyping.

“One of the things I’ve been concerned with is that the history they tell is a serious history,” said James Oliver Horton, a professor of history at George Washington University who was hired to advise Disney.

“I’m not interested in a fantasy history,” he said.

In its first promotional materials last fall, Disney outlined a 185-acre park that would bring up to 30,000 visitors a day to “recall the past, live the present, dream the future.”

Conceptually, it included nine areas, from “Native America, 1600-1800,” which would describe earlier American Indian civilizations, to “Victory Field, 1930-1945,” based on the nation’s response to World War II.

Other areas included “We the People, 1870-1930,” an Ellis Island re-creation that would tell the tale of immigrants; “Civil War Fort, 1850-1870,” which would tackle American slavery and the war that ended it, and “Enterprise, 1870-1930,” which would describe industrialization.

Company executives had described possible rides, such as a virtual-reality World War II fighter pilot flight and a Lewis and Clark river expedition.

Now Disney designers are considering exhibits in which visitors can see the process of history being made, said Robin Reardon, a show producer for Disney’s America.

“What if we had graduate students doing research on some aspects of American history” who would become part of the display? Reardon asked.