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

Jill Jonnes reconstructs the chaotic final months of the 1900 Paris World's Fair, a period when the Eiffel Tower was not yet the finished icon it is today but a contested, unfinished structure looming over the exposition. The narrative weaves together the engineering challenges of Gustave Eiffel with the cultural spectacle of the fair, where Buffalo Bill Cody performed for skeptical Parisians, artists clashed over the tower's aesthetic intrusion, and Thomas Edison navigated the social intricacies of French high society. Jonnes treats the tower as a lens for examining the tensions between industrial progress, artistic tradition, and national identity at the turn of the century.

The writing is lively and anecdotal, favoring colorful character sketches and dramatic historical moments over dry technical analysis. By focusing on the human drama surrounding the construction and the fair's opening, the book offers a vivid portrait of Belle Époque Paris, capturing the era's exuberance, its anxieties about modernity, and the specific cultural friction that made the Eiffel Tower a global symbol.

Description adapted from Open Library bibliographic data ↗.