Rise Above It

Eiffel's Tower for Young People: the Story of the 1889 World's Fair by Jill Jonnes ; adapted by Rebecca Stefoff.

New York : Triangle Square, 2019.

xi, 354 p. : ill. ; 21 cm.

World's Fairs offer excellent subject matter for history writers.  Think of Eric Larson's macabre and fascinating bestseller about the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. World's Fairs offer a glimpse into the way the dominant culture/s of the time viewed themselves, including who and what was celebrated.  The fairs featured extravagance, spectacle, celebrities and adventure.  The 1889 Paris World's Fair was no exception.  There were bitter rivalries between artists, the spectacle of the Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, a hall of inventions, superstar guests like Thomas Edison, and international rivalries, too. Above all there was the now iconic Eiffel Tower at the center of it all - and at the center of this accessible history - an adaptation for younger readers of Jill Jonnes' Eiffel's Tower. 

I like that this adaptation of Eiffel's Tower moves chronologically, but also builds on storytelling by giving ample time to central characters in the fair: Gustave Eiffel (of course), Buffalo Bill Cody, Annie Oakley, Thomas Edison, the painters James Abbott McNeill Whistler and Paul Gaugin.  Vincent Van Gogh even gets a mention.  Yes, so much was happening at that moment in history.

The book also presents the racism & colonialism running through the fair - exhibits of "model villages and streets" of Frances colonies and targets for colonization. The book also lightly touches on the contradictions of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show whose company included many Sioux Indians who Cody treated well as workers, but who were also part of the propaganda of the show celebrating the "taming of the US west." 

I'd recommend this book for any student interested in history, especially late 19th century history - a fascinating time when Europe dominated the world not long before descending into the murderous self-destruction of WWI, a period covered in much more detail by Barbara Tuchman in The Proud Tower.