Ephemeral Vistas: The Expositions Universelles, Great Exhibitions and World’s Fairs, 1851–1939 by Paul Greenhalgh

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 1043 mid-17th century; thereafter, geodetic, topographical, and thematic cartography entered a new era, a period dominated by the French for the next two centuries. But why France, and why these centuries? Before approaching an answer, Konvitz suggests that ideas and individuals were less significant than institutions, that the willingness of French policymakers to support cartographic activity in advance of demonstrated need was an essential ingredient. Favorable condi­ tions, then, aided by a variety of supporting institutions, eventually gave rise to increased numbers of mapmakers, and, in turn, cartography emerged as an “autonomous enterprise.” Some readers perhaps will not be satisfied or entirely persuaded by this explana­ tion. Interpretive terms such as discipline, specialty, trade, comm­ unity—even paradigm—are avoided. In the end, this volume provides a useful institutional survey of the development of French cartography from 1660 to 1848. To be sure, readers expecting a theoretical or technical history of mapmaking will be disappointed. But for the reader seeking a solid survey, a scholarly study grounded in archival research and drafted by a skilled hand, the hook provides direction and timely assistance to the contours of modern French cartography. Robert A. Hatch Dr. Hatch, associate professor of history at the University of Florida, teaches in the Program for the History of Science, Technology & Medicine. He is currently preparing a calendar for the correspondence of Ismael Boulliau (1605-94), an edition of the Boulliau-Gassendi correspondence, and a biographical guide and index to the Scientific Revolution. Ephemeral Vistas: The Expositions Universelles, Great Exhibitions and World’s Fairs, 1851—1939. By Paul Greenhalgh. Manchester: Manchester University Press; New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988. Pp. xii + 245; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $49.95. Over the past few years, an increasing number of historians have turned their attention to the study of international exhibitions as influential reflectors and shapers of the modern world. Paul Green­ halgh, a historian of design, is convinced that “fi]n their presentation of industry and empire, [world’s fairs] reflected more profoundly than any other cultural institution the driving forces behind Western society up to the Second World War” (p. 52). Furthermore, he argues, fairs “were intended to distract, indoctrinate, and unify” (p. 49) the nations in which they were held. These two themes are interwoven in Greenhalgh’s analysis of fairs organized between 1851 and 1939 in Great Britain, Europe, and the United States, with passing attention paid to fairs organized in other countries as well. 1044 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE The breadth of this book is impressive. Greenhalgh succinctly covers the origins of international fairs in the industrial and national exhibitions that preceded the Crystal Palace Exhibition. He also examines the difficult subject of world’s fair financing (noting the differences between the private financing schemes developed by the British and Americans and the public financing that undergirded French international exhibitions) and deftly addresses the issue of exhibition profitability by reminding us of the “invisible earning capacity of exhibitions” (p. 49), especially of their effect on increasing the number and range of commercial transactions. Greenhalgh is particularly sensitive to the role of world’s fairs in shaping imperial attitudes on both sides of the Atlantic and explains how, beginning in 1867, displays of colonial people became central to the efforts of world’s fair organizers to secure popular support for overseas impe­ rialism. Equally important, Greenhalgh calls attention to villages of selected European populations at world’s fairs and their role in defining core/periphery relations between dominant and subject European populations. He also offers important insights into wom­ en’s involvement with fairs and calls attention to the transformation at American fairs of “Women’s Buildings from arenas for the discussion of rights to comfortable bazaars, where the unequal status quo was accepted and even lauded” (p. 183). Equally dramatic changes characterized the design of the fairs. Between 1851 and 1889, Greenhalgh believes, architecture and engineering marched hand in hand illustrating the power of new technologies. After the turn of the century, however, displays of engineering accomplishments were relegated to the midways as stone and plaster facades increasingly dominated the main exposition grounds. Why did this transformation...