The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America

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Author Erik Larson imbues the incredible events surrounding the 1893 Chicago World's Fair with such drama that readers may find themselves checking the book's categorization to be sure that The Devil in the White City is not, in fact, a highly imaginative novel. Larson tells the stories of two men: Daniel H. Burnham, the architect responsible for the fair's construction, and H.H. Holmes, a serial killer masquerading as a charming doctor. Burnham's challenge was immense. In a short period of time, he was forced to overcome the death of his partner and numerous other obstacles to construct the famous "White City" around which the fair was built. His efforts to complete the project, and the fair's incredible success, are skillfully related along with entertaining appearances by such notables as Buffalo Bill Cody, Susan B. Anthony, and Thomas Edison. The activities of the sinister Dr. Holmes, who is believed to be responsible for scores of murders around the time of the fair, are equally remarkable. He devised and erected the World's Fair Hotel, complete with crematorium and gas chamber, near the fairgrounds and used the event as well as his own charismatic personality to lure victims. Combining the stories of an architect and a killer in one book, mostly in alternating chapters, seems like an odd choice but it works. The magical appeal and horrifying dark side of 19th-century Chicago are both revealed through Larson's skillful writing. --John Moe

Book Description

Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium. Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.

The Devil in the White City draws the reader into a time of magic and majesty, made all the more appealing by a supporting cast of real-life characters, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and others. In this book the smoke, romance, and mystery of the Gilded Age come alive as never before.

Erik Larson’s gifts as a storyteller are magnificently displayed in this rich narrative of the master builder, the killer, and the great fair that obsessed them both.

To find out more about this book, go to http://www.DevilInTheWhiteCity.com.

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In The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson, author of Isaac's Storm, tells the spellbinding true story of two men, an architect and a serial killer, whose fates were linked by the greatest fair in American history: the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, nicknamed "The White City."

Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America's rush toward the twentieth century.

The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair's brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country's most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C.

The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his "World's Fair Hotel" just west of the fairgrounds -- a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium.

Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.

The Devil in the White City draws the reader into a time of magic and majesty, made all the more appealing by a supporting cast of real-life characters, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and others. In this book, the smoke, romance and mystery of the Gilded Age come alive as never before.

Erik Larson's gifts as a storyteller are magnificently displayed in this rich narrative of the master builder, the killer, and the great fair that obsessed them both.

"Engrossing... exceedingly well documented... utterly fascinating."
   CHICAGO TRIBUNE

"A dynamic, enveloping book.... Relentlessly fuses history and entertainment to give this nonfiction book the dramtic effect of a novel.... It doesn't hurt that this truth is stranger than fiction."
   THE NEW YORK TIMES

"So good, you find yourself asking how you could not know this already."
   ESQUIRE

"Another successful exploration of American history.... Larson skillfully balances the grisly details with the far-reaching implications of the World's Fair."
   USA TODAY

"As absorbing a piece of popular history as one will ever hope to find."
   SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

"Paints a dazzling picture of the Gilded Age and prefigure the American century to come."
   ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

"A wonderfully unexpected book... Larson is a historian... with a novelist's soul."
   CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

Customer Reviews:

History and Mystery in a non-fiction page turner.......2007-10-11

Larsen deftly weaves an intriguing tale of the building of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 with a story about a psychopath who commits several murders without detection during the same period. The book is chock full of information about prominent personages and inventions that changed the way we live today. It is a real page turner.

Fact and Speculation.......2007-10-10

The Devil In the White City raises troublesome questions about what is factual and what is pure authorial speculation. At times the Larson even privaledges his own imagination as being closer to the truth than statements provided by key players in the book. (See the first three paragraphs on page 39 for an example.) Stronger documentation and clear indications of when the text was meandering into the imaginative realm would have helped this book tremendously.

Great book, though leaves a bit to be desired...........2007-10-09

I am not a huge reader (too busy with college) but this book really caught my eye and, let me tell you, I made time for it once I realized how good it was. The book is incredibly informative and it is immediately apparent that the author did an ENORMOUS amount of research. As one of the reviewers says on a page at the front of the book, you will be left wondering how you DIDN'T know these stories already (for example, you learn about the first Ferris wheel.)

All of that said, I was hoping for much more information about the serial killer aspect... the author would devote maybe 4 pages worth of Holmes for every 10 pages worth of the Chicago Fair. I was mistakenly led to believe that the ratio was about equal and throughout the book, kept hoping that the Fair's historical accounts would become less frequent and instead would be replaced with more of the true crime aspect. At the end of the book, I came to find out that there simply wasn't enough information about the crimes to fill the book as most readers might have liked.

In short, this book is excellent and I highly recommend it. Just be forewarned, it is much more about the Chicago World Fair (and in more detail than most people probably prefer) and less about the serial killer and his

Very interesting.......2007-10-01

The book goes into more detail than what I care for, but it is very very interesting in everything you learn about American History

Amazing.......2007-09-29

Belonging to a book club for several years, we all agreed this book rated as one of our top ten books. Not only was it historically accurate but it was written in a style that captivated the reader with a serial killer on the loose and a race against time to accomplish an almost impossible feat. A book to be read and reread.

The Chicago World's Fair of 1893: A Photographic Record (Dover Architectural Series)

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Great look at the "White City"
Fantasy City

The Chicago World's Fair of 1893: A Photographic Record (Dover Architectural Series)

Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 048623990X

Book Description

Colossal spectacle preserved in 128 rare, vintage photographs with concise, fact-filled text: 200 buildings — 79 of foreign governments, 38 of U.S. states — the original ferris wheel, first midway, Edison's kinetoscope, much more. 128 black-and-white photographs. Captions. Map. Index.

Customer Reviews:

Great look at the "White City".......2006-07-25

A beautiful collection of images, showing the wonders of the 1893 fair. A great look back.

Fantasy City.......2005-08-15

One book leads to another. After reading The Devil in the White City, I wanted to see the Exposition described in the book. It definitely was an amazing sight to see and this book satisfied most of that curiosity. To go one better, I might look for a book that goes even further into that time in life. The city is every bit the accomplishment as described in the afore mentioned book. Where is the America of that artful integrity, that is, to do the best that can be accomplished? Gone to disposable products including much of architecture.

New York World's Fair, The 1964-1965 (NY) (Images of America)

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NY Worlds Fair
Reminiscent of a unique American event
A Great Primer To A Great Event!
I wish I could have gone!

New York World's Fair, The 1964-1965 (NY) (Images of America)
Bill Cotter , and Bill Young
Manufacturer: Arcadia Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

ASIN: 0738536067

Book Description

The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair was the largest international exhibition ever built in the United States. More than one hundred fifty pavilions and exhibits spread over six hundred forty-six acres helped the fair live up to its reputation as "the Billion-Dollar Fair." With the cold war in full swing, the fair offered visitors a refreshingly positive view of the future, mirroring the official theme: Peace through Understanding. Guests could travel back in time through a display of full-sized dinosaurs, or look into a future where underwater hotels and flying cars were commonplace. They could enjoy Walt Disney's popular shows, or study actual spacecraft flown in orbit. More than fifty-one million guests visited the fair before it closed forever in 1965. The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair captures the history of this event through vintage photographs, published here for the first time.

Customer Reviews:

NY Worlds Fair .......2007-09-24

I was only about 6 when I went to the NY Worlds Fair. I remember only certain parts like it was a dream. This book helped me put those memories in proper format. Now I understand what really went on behind the scenes and pavillions. This is an excellent book

Reminiscent of a unique American event.......2007-01-18

Provides a comprehensive walk down memory lane for this unique American event, the likes of which we will probably never see again. As we were about to experience a technology revolution, all of the depictions of the future offered up by the Fair provided so much hope and optimism for the future. Very complete visual account of the Fair with some text. I wish the pictures were larger with some color images as well (although the cost would increase). Perhaps a little more text about the Fair would have been better. Overall, a very good account of the '64 Worlds Fair which will no doubt bring back some good memories of a very different time.

A Great Primer To A Great Event!.......2005-08-14

You couldn't pick two finer experts on the 1964 New York World's Fair to put together this photo essay overview of this too-neglected event. Bill Young is the creator of the magnificent website devoted to the Fair, www.nywf64.com, where you will find all sorts of fascinating information about the Fair, while Bill Cotter has assembled the best collection of amateur Fair photos over the years. This book spotlights some of those photos and offers a great look at this event that I wish I had been alive to have gone too! Excellent job, my friends.

I wish I could have gone!.......2004-10-21

This book does an excellent job of describing the glitz, excitement and joyous excess that was known as the 1964 World's Fair. With great pictures and great writing this book elegantly handles the challenge of taking you on a whirlwind tour of the fair. May favorite part of the book is how it manages to weave facts about the fair, facts about the time period and unique insider information into the tapestry of the book.

In other words, I really enjoyed the book. It doesn't matter whether you were alive in 1964 or not, by the end of the book you'll be longing for a time when the future held so much promise. At the very least, you'll want a waffle.

Average customer rating:

Nostalgia tempered by realism
Dull stuff
Lost Without Ragtime
A Delight To Read
Historical fiction with a literary sensibility

World's Fair
E.L. Doctorow
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0394525280
Release Date: 1985-10-12

Book Description

"Something close to magic." The Los Angeles Times

The astonishing novel of a young boy's life in the New York City of the 1930s, a stunning recreation of the sights, sounds, aromas and emotions of a time when the streets were safe, families stuck together through thick and thin, and all the promises of a generation culminate in a single great World's Fair . . .

From the Paperback edition.

Customer Reviews:

Nostalgia tempered by realism.......2006-12-12

World's Fair, overall, is a gentle, nostalgic vision of life in (Jewish) New York in the 1930's. But it is easy in this novel to overlook the harsh realities which Doctorow decides to show: anti-Semitism, the rising tide of fear in America before World War II, the harsh economic realities of life for working class people after the Depression. But most of all, there is the sense of working class, family oppression. The family, for all the nostalgia it evokes in this novel, is increasing seen as suffocating. The ties which bind a family together eventually become a noose in World's Fair. This novel has a darker current beneath the layer of sentiment and nostalgia.

Dull stuff.......2006-01-24

I am a Doctorow fan and have read many of his other books. I couldn't get into this one, though - there just isn't a "hook." Doctorow's historical writing is fantastic when it ornaments a good story with some drama. In this case, it's all ornament and no structure. I recommend you not bother with this one.

Lost Without Ragtime.......2005-09-08

So many reviewers here cite how great this book was as a "sequel" to Ragtime. I guess I made a terrible mistake, then, by reading this one without having read Ragtime first.

I read it because of my fascination with the 1939 New York Worlds Fair. I also read it because one of my all-time favorites is David Gelernter's "1939: The Lost World of the Fair." And, I must tell you, this book paled in comparison to Gelernter's.

It is a tribute to Doctorow's skill as a writer that so many people related so closely to the protagonist. I was not immediately charmed and this disconnect affected my ability to enjoy this book as much as others have.

So, a word to the wise: if you want to get the most from this book, read "Ragtime" first. Don't do what I did...

A Delight To Read .......2005-08-19

Doctorow is a fine writer who can spin a 300-page story out of thin air. This novel introduces us to an up-and-coming Jewish family in Queens in the 1930's. The central character is a young man of about ten whose main ambition is to be able to attend the World's Fair that is going on that summer. While this may not sound like much material to work with, in the hands of a pro like Mr. Doctorow, this story sprouts wings and FLIES.

Historical fiction with a literary sensibility.......2005-05-02

Written ten years after Ragtime, Doctorow's World's Fair seems to be a far simpler book, primarily because it is all told from a single point of view, that adult Edgar looking back at his childhood and its significance. Doctorow, however, creates a complex picture of what it meant to be Jewish and growing up in the Bronx during the 1930's, a time when Americans struggled against the hardships of the Great Depression. Much as he does in Ragtime, Doctorow sets up the beginning - the birth of Edgar - as a time of innocence and imagined perfection that eventually gets marred by reality, with the safety of childhood challenged as much by family dynamics as current events.

As with all Doctorow's later books, there is a strong element of nostalgia, a sense that the author is writing about better, more defining times. Edgar's progression through childhood and his sharp observations of all that unfolds around him comprise the plot. His mother, caught in a squabble of a marriage but dedicated to her family all the same, gives Edgar and his older brother Donald stability where their unreliable but dashing father cannot. As the 1939 World's Fair approaches, Edgar places his hopes on winning an essay contest about the All-American Boy to get free tickets, but, of course, events don't transpire exactly as Edgar expects.

The novel is meant to be taken as autobiographical (the "E" in E.L. Doctorow stands for "Edgar.') This carefully constructed fiction, with its concrete details and straightforward style, melds invention with truth, giving this novel an intimate, honest tone. The method of adopting historical details - events, personalities, mass psychology - gives the character context within the times and lends the sense of a greater story to what is essentially a coming-of-age novel.

Although World's Fair is not my favorite Doctorow novel, it remains a fine addition to any reading list.

The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines

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The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines
Paul A. Kramer
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0807856533

Book Description

In 1899 the United States, having announced its arrival as a world power during the Spanish-Cuban-American War, inaugurated a brutal war of imperial conquest against the Philippine Republic. Over the next five decades, U.S. imperialists justified their colonial empire by crafting novel racial ideologies adapted to new realities of collaboration and anticolonial resistance. In this pathbreaking, transnational study, Paul Kramer reveals how racial politics served U.S. empire, and how empire-building in turn transformed ideas of race and nation in both the United States and the Philippines.

Kramer argues that Philippine-American colonial history was characterized by struggles over sovereignty and recognition. In the wake of a racial-exterminist war, U.S. colonialists, in dialogue with Filipino elites, divided the Philippine population into "civilized" Christians and "savage" animists and Muslims. The former were subjected to a calibrated colonialism that gradually extended them self-government as they demonstrated their "capacities." The latter were governed first by Americans, then by Christian Filipinos who had proven themselves worthy of shouldering the "white man's burden." Ultimately, however, this racial vision of imperial nation-building collided with U.S. nativist efforts to insulate the United States from its colonies, even at the cost of Philippine independence. Kramer provides an innovative account of the global transformations of race and the centrality of empire to twentieth-century U.S. and Philippine histories.

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Overall good, but somewhat incomplete

World's Fairs
Erik Mattie
Manufacturer: Princeton Architectural Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Fair America

World's Fairs and the End of Progress: An Insider's View

New York World's Fair, The 1964-1965 (NY) (Images of America)

The New York World's Fair, 1939/1940: in 155 Photographs by Richard Wurts and Others

World of Fairs: The Century-of-Progress Expositions

ASIN: 1568981325

Book Description

As showcases of design, architecture, technology, industry, and politics, world's fairs have served as overviews of society's accomplishments as well as barometers of our optimism about the future. They have captured the imagination of the hundreds of millions of people who attend them, and are ongoing objects of fascination, as witnessed by the collectibles, web sites, histories, and memoirs that surround them.
World's Fairs looks back on 150 years of looking forward. Surprisingly, this is the first illustrated history of all major exhibitions, from the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations in London in 1851 to the upcoming fair in Hanover in 2000. In all, 27 fairs are detailed through their histories, structures, and graphics.
While many of the products and ideas promoted at past fairs never materialized, many became commonplace: television, for example, was first shown at the 1939 New York fair. Similarly, while many buildings and landscapes built for fairs have become worldwide icons-the Eiffel Tower, the Crystal Palace, the Barcelona Pavilion, the Seattle Space Needle, the Buckminster Fuller dome in Montreal-hundreds of splendid structures have been forgotten. World's Fairs uses original plans, design studies, period photo-graphs, and ephemera such as programs and postcards to recreate the visual richness, color, and excitement of world's fairs.

Customer Reviews:

Overall good, but somewhat incomplete.......1999-05-18

This is a nice "coffee table" book with lots of rare photographs and drawings . The book is focused on the architecture of past World's Fairs, and the author chooses expositions that he considers to be architecturally significant. This means that his choices are a bit arbitrary, and also, because of their transient nature, most of the buildings at World's Fairs will eventually be torn down. The author basically ignores most of the World's Fairs that have taken place in the last 25 years, and doesn't mention some landmarks from recent World's Fairs, that have become part of the buildings that define a city, such as the Canada Place building from Expo '86 in Vancouver, that is a key part of that city's architecture now.

Remembering The Future - The New York World's Fair from 1939 to 1964

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Very Enjoyable
One Book I Couldn't Part With

Remembering The Future - The New York World's Fair from 1939 to 1964
Rizzoli
Manufacturer: Rizzoli
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Study & Teaching | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Customer Reviews:

Very Enjoyable.......2002-08-14

Excellent book for worlds fair fans. Lots of info and pictures, and does a good job of placing the fair in the context of its time. Note that the Queens Museum Gift Shop hs this book for sale for less than 68.00

One Book I Couldn't Part With.......2001-01-10

This is one book I couldn't part with! I frequently used to check the only copy of this book around for miles from our library until the ecstatic day I found a copy I could actually buy and own. It was at the Queen's Museum of Art in New York on the actual site of both World's Fairs (1939 & 1964). This book is the absolute penultimate reference for that wonderful phenomenon that was the 1964 New York World's Fair. The articles and photos contained within relate the experience of the fair so effectively that I felt like it still exists. What a sensational book. Thank you for it!

The World's Columbian Exposition: The Chicago World's Fair of 1893

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Chicago Colombian Exposition
very interesting

The World's Columbian Exposition: The Chicago World's Fair of 1893
Norman Bolotin , and Christine Laing
Manufacturer: University of Illinois Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Study & Teaching | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books

19th Century | World | History | Subjects | Books

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

Technical | Writing | Reference | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 025207081X

Book Description

This exceptional chronicle takes readers on a visual tour of the glittering "white city" that emerged along the swampy south shore of Lake Michigan as a symbol of Chicago's rebirth and pride twenty-two years after the Great Fire.

The World's Columbian Exposition, which commemorated the 400th anniversary of Columbus's voyage to America, was held from April to October in 1893. The monumental event welcomed twenty-eight million visitors, covered six hundred acres of land, boasted dozens of architectural wonders, and was home to some sixty-five thousand exhibits from all over the world. From far and wide, people came to experience the splendors of the fair, to witness the magic sparkle of electric lights or ride the world's first Ferris wheel, known as the Eiffel Tower of Chicago.

Norman Bolotin and Christine Laing have assembled a dazzling photographic history of the fair. Here are panoramic views of the concourse--replete with waterways and gondolas, the amazing moving sidewalk, masterful landscaping and horticultural splendorsÐ-and reproductions of ads, flyers, souvenirs, and keepsakes. Here too are the grand structures erected solely for the fair, from the golden doorway of the Transportation Building to the aquariums and ponds of the Fisheries Building, as well as details such as menu prices, the cost to rent a Kodak camera, and injury and arrest reports from the Columbian Guard.

This unique volume tells the story of the World's Columbian Exposition from its conception and construction to the scientific, architectural, and cultural legacies it left behind, inviting readers to imagine what it would have been like to spend a week at the fair.

Customer Reviews:

Chicago Colombian Exposition.......2007-05-12

A thorough history, interestingly written and beautifully illustrated. A good follow-up to "Devil in the White City".

very interesting.......2005-06-22

I found this book quite fascinating. I have been reading Erik Larson's wonderful "The Devil in the White City" but since that comes with virtually no illustrations, I bought this book primarily for the photographs, of which it has a great many and which go a long way to conveying just how huge this fair was (there were 735,000+ visitors on the day that had the highest attendance rate).

It also fills in information Larson's book lacks about the exhibits themselves, the individual state and country buildings and the Midway as well as statistics on how much food was served every day and how many bathrooms were available plus it shows pictures of the moving sidewalk that took visitors who arrived by boat to the fair itself; the Xerxes telescope; many displays and decorations made out of corn and oranges; the foreigners who were part of the Midway attractions; the Wooded Island; the first automated paint sprayer (with which a crew of three was able to paint the interior of the entire Manufacturers and Liberal Arts Building in only six weeks); a lifesize statue of a wooly mammoth, then thought to have been the largest animal to have ever walked the earth; and several pictures of the Ferris Wheel under construction. It also has a table showing what attractions were available and how much they cost and one indicating which architect designed which building (something Larson's readers will appreciate).

The only real problem I had with the book (and the reason for four stars instead of five) is that it's printed on regular paper stock and not on glossy paper so the photographs are somewhat blurry and grainy and not as crisp as they would have been had the publisher used different paper. Also the book provides a copy of the map of the fairgrounds given by Montgomery Ward to it's customers but this map is too small plus it's printed so that part of it lies in the book's center crease. I think it would have been better if the publisher had had a map drawn and used that or had found one that provided more information. There is a three dimensional map of the Exposition available on the Web -- it would have been nice if something like that had been included as well since it's impossible to get a comprehensive, birdseye view of the Fair (nevermind one in relation to Chicago and the surrounding community) from just the photographs. There is also a bibliography and a somewhat incomplete index. I don't know how this book compares to other pictorial books on the Exposition but it was fine for what I needed and had lots of bits of interesting trivia besides.

The Devil in the White City : Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America

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The Devil in the White City : Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
Erik Larson
Manufacturer: Crown Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 096571134X

Product Description

True Crime, Chicago World's Fair

World of Fairs: The Century-of-Progress Expositions

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World Fairs as Seen Through a Marxist Lens
I loved this book.

World of Fairs: The Century-of-Progress Expositions
Robert W. Rydell
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0226732371

Book Description

In the depths of the Great Depression, when America's future seemed bleak, nearly one hundred million people visited expositions celebrating the "century of progress." These fairs fired the national imagination and served as cultural icons on which Americans fixed their hopes for prosperity and power.

World of Fairs continues Robert W. Rydell's unique cultural history—begun in his acclaimed All the World's a Fair—this time focusing on the interwar exhibitions. He shows how the ideas of a few—particularly artists, architects, and scientists—were broadcast to millions, proclaiming the arrival of modern America—a new empire of abundance build on old foundations of inequality.

Rydell revisits several fairs, highlighting the 1926 Philadelphia Sesquicentennial, the 1931 Paris Colonial Exposition, the 1933-34 Chicago Century of Progress Exposition, the 1935-36 San Diego California Pacific Exposition, the 1936 Dallas Texas Centennial Exposition, the 1937 Cleveland Great Lakes and International Exposition, the 1939-40 San Francisco Golden Gate International Exposition, the 1939-40 New York World's Fair, and the 1958 Brussels Universal Exposition.

Customer Reviews:

World Fairs as Seen Through a Marxist Lens.......2004-09-21

If you want to know what the Worlds' Fairs would look like to a Marxist, then this is the book for you. The basic idea of Marxism is that Capitalism is an unsustainable system of "consumption" that relies on exploitation and imperialism to feed itself. The thesis of this book is that the Fairs were tools of the Bourgeois to enjoin the masses to become fully engaged in the imperialistic feeding frenzy that was Capitalism from 1850-1950. The meaning of the fairs is as broad an issue as the meaning of Capitalism and western civilization - you can't find the meaning of the fairs by looking only at the fairs themselves. Such an analysis naturally depends heavily on the context the author brings to the task - and Rydell's context is Marxism.

I loved this book........1999-02-02

Rydell posits that the world's fairs that occurred from the late 19th century until the mid-twentieth century were designed to promote corporate and government agendas of imperialism, and to inaugurate the populace into a culture of unchecked consumerism. After reading this book, I'm convinced.

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