Fair World: A History of World's Fairs and Expositions from London to Shanghai 1851-2010

by Paul Greenhalgh

The great World's Fairs and Expositions staged around the world since the mid-nineteenth century were among the largest and most dramatic cultural events ever staged. In both beneficial and detrimental ways, they affected the lives of tens of millions of people. Fair World tells the story of these extraordinary exhibitions from the Victorian period to the present day.

Genres: History, Art, Nonfiction

282 pages, Hardcover

First published January 16, 2011

About the author

Paul Greenhalgh is Head of Research at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. He is an expert on the Art Nouveau period and a leading scholar in the field of decorative arts.

Reviews

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first few chapters on the origins of the fairs and their financing are great, especially in their comparative focus on Britain, France, and the United States. I was less impressed with the chapters on empire and human display, but that's mostly because there's been more secondary work in those areas, and that work was not reflected in the book as much as one would like.

I'll be assigning a couple of chapters for an upcoming seminar. I'm sort of dreading that, though, in that it will be difficult to get good copies. It would be nice to have a plain e-book version to be able to assign. I can't assign the actual book. It's not prohibitively expensive, but it is prohibitively heavy.

[Charles Heath · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent compendium, though I preferred the author's previous emission Ephemeral Vistas, this is a coffee table revised version of that book, I believe, that details the social and political production and consumption of these capitalistic orgies of empire and rapine. RECYCLE!

One quibble is that in this lavishly illustrated version EVERY SINGLE PAGE IS A DIFFERENT SHADE OR COLOR FROM BUFF TO RED AND BLACK TO GOLDENROD WTF almost goddamned impossible to read at points.

BUT
A fantastic reference capturing between TWO UNWIELDY COVERS the history of EXPOSITIONS
LOVE

[Errol Laurie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was hoping for a walkthrough chronologically of the fairs and their wonders. Was much more technical and political than that