Eiffel's Tower: And the World's Fair Where Buffalo Bill Beguiled Paris, the Artists Quarreled, and Thomas Edison Became a Count

(Paperback)

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Description

Since it opened in May 1889, the Eiffel Tower has become an iconic image of modern times: as much a beacon of technological progress as an enduring symbol of Paris and French culture. But as engineer Gustave Eiffel built the now-famous landmark to be the spectacular centrepiece of the 1889 World's Fair, he stirred up a storm of vitriol from Parisian tastemakers, law-suits and predictions of a certain structural calamity. A compelling account of the tower's creation as well as a superb portrait of Belle Epoque France.

Reviews

Praise for Eiffels Tower

Ms. Jonnes does a fine job of walking us through the fair, where visitors were immersed in a typical late-nineteenth-century stew of high-minded educational exhibits and cheap thrills.
Richard B. Woodward, The New York Times

In splendid detail, Jonnes examines the importance of the tower in its own historical moment.
Caroline Weber, The New York Times Book Review (Editors Choice)

This panorama of life near the end of the nineteenth century is vivid, detailed and engrossing. . . . A well-researched read that will transport them back to a time as complex and crazy as our own.
Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Exploiting the almost magnetic attraction of the great tower, Jonnes cleverly pulls into her narrative a wide range of characters, from Little Sure Shot Annie Oakley to art warrior Paul Gauguin. . . . She does [a] . . . fine job of demonstrating what M. Eiffel insisted all along: that his tower was much more than just an object of barren wonder.
Robert Cremins, Houston Chronicle

Jonnes rollicking account of the Eiffel Towers rowdy debut is an occasion for celebration itself. . . . With flair and marvelously descriptive, you-are-there prose, Jonnes gives Eiffels Tower the immediacy that only a talented writer can bestow on history. Adding to the book's impact are the numerous photos of the tower, the fair and the people who came to see them. . . . Jonnes weaves these crazy fragments into a beautiful quilt. . . . As elegant and eccentric as its subject, Eiffels Tower sparkles with the power of conviction and the passion of creation.
Jay Strafford, Richmond Times-Dispatch

A colorful cast of characters descended on Paris for the 1889 Worlds Fair, and Jonnes (Conquering Gotham) offers an atmospheric overview of the celebrities who made Belle Epoque Paris their stage during the memorable event.
Publishers Weekly

Jonnes book is more than just a recap of perhaps the most interesting international exposition ever staged. With the gift of hindsight, Jonnes illuminates the roots of Belle Epoque Paris and Belle Epoque Europe, a period of peace and progress marked by technological progress and cultural advances that lasted from the 1880s to the 1914 start of World War I. . . . Big dreams and worlds fairs benefit mankind and make history, and Jonnes book proves.
David Hendricks, San Antonio Express-News

This entertaining new work chronicles the towers storied beginnings. . . . This carefully researched book, which combines technological and social history (and offers a lively account of the Worlds Fair), paints a compelling portrait of Belle Epoque France.
France Magazine

In Eiffels Tower, Jill Jonnes (Empires of Light, Conquering Gotham) presents an engaging story of a great engineer, one with an attractive boldness, impetuosity, and natural courage.
James, Summerville, BookPage

In Eiffels Tower, historian Jill Jonnes helps us travel back in time to the Exposition Universelle of 1889 in Paris . . . and tells the story of Gustave Eiffels Tour en Fer de Trois Cents Mtres. Jonnes immerses us so thoroughly in the Exposition that when we get to her description of the Fairs final day, were almost sad to leave.
Book-of-the-Month Club

This is a thoroughly delightful book, built around Gustave Eiffels Tour en Fer (iron tower), but really describing in rich detail Paris and its Exposition Universelle in 1889, coincidentally the centennial of the French Revolution. Author Jill Jonnes re-creates deliciously the Belle Epoque.
Jules Wagman, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Author Bio

Jill Jonnes is the author of Eiffel's Tower, Urban Forests,Conquering Gotham, Empires of Light, and South Bronx Rising. She was named a National Endowment for the Humanities scholar and has received several grants from the Ford Foundation. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.