Comparisons to Erik Larson's book "Devil in the White City"

about the Chicago World's Fair are inevitable. To my mind,

"Eiffel's Tower" is much more readable and entertaining,

without being any less didactic. Jonnes does an excellent

job weaving together the threads of science and industry,

art and society, politics and popular culture in Belle Epoque

Paris by following select historical personages and their

associations with the Fair. "Vive Guillaume Buffalo!"

I wanted more on Eiffel and less on some of the other characters.

I don't know if you've ever watched any Robert Altman films, but that's all I kept thinking about as I read this book. It's a book made of episodes that sometimes intersect, and frequently don't.

Lots of "characters" only quasi-belong - Vincent van Gogh? From what I got, he was at the exposition maybe 30 seconds. Gauguin was there only a bit longer, although it was cool to learn he bought a cowboy hat while he was there (souvenir from Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show).

And in terms of time, the boundaries were again pretty ill-defined, and erred on the side of including irrelevant events.

But it's all entertaining enough, and a pleasant collection of stuff.

A bit slow and I often found myself bogged down with way too many details. But overall a very interesting book filled with tibits about the famous landmark.

I thought the first half of the book was fantastic. I would recommend this to anyone interested in either architecture - with the details of the Eiffel Tower, or World's Fairs - with the information about the Paris 1889 World's Fair. Details of Van Gogh and Buffalo Bill Cody and Annie Oakley add a range of content for everyone.
Unfortunately, after the halfway point, the author stretches the conclusion on for far to many pages. With the tower built and the fair closed, the wrap up of the characters extends through each of their entire lives... and feels unnecessary.
Despite this, I found this book fascinating and enjoyed the story.

This should be the perfect book for me: turn of the century Paris, politics, invention, art. But I could only make it to page 95. Jonnes writes well, but the pacing is stagnant and lacks drama. It is very anecdotal as she pieces together narratives about the players in the World's Fair. There is no sense of the human struggle and toll to build the tower. Also, she is very liberal in her use of quotes. I found myself choosing to grade student essays over reading this book. It's time to move on.

Jill Jonnes looks at the various people who created the most splash with the 1889 World's Fair in Paris. Some of the main individuals she writes about you may have heard of--Edison, Eiffel, Buffalo Bill Cody, Annie Oakley, Van Gogh, Whistler and on and on. Like Erik Larson's history of the 1893 fair [Devil in the White City, but without a serial killer], the book bounces from one character to the next as Jonnes weaves them into the larger narrative. I like the build-up, the planning and the creation of the major draws of the fair [the tower, Buffalo Bill's wild west show, etc] than the endless description of people's reaction to what they see at the fair. There's so much reaction that it tends to get a little repetitive toward the end. There's an action-packed afterward though. Entertaining look at a world I knew little about, reading it makes me want to go see the awe-inspiring Eiffel Tower now when before I had scant interest in it. The tower really was an incredible achievement.

If this book doesn't make you want to visit Paris, nothing will! This book was very well researched and felt like an enjoyable history lesson. I guess if you don't like history, that won't appeal to you. I do, so it did. The book follows many prominent people from the late 1800's who visited the world's fair the year the Eiffel Tower was completed. I found every aspect of this book interesting and even though there was no active plot and the narrative jumped from person to person, I was constantly saying "just a few more pages..." All in all, a very enjoyable and fascinating read! I'm now inspired to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower and read a biography of Annie Oakley!

I was a little disappointed with the percentage of the book that is actually about the Eiffel Tower. There was a lot about Buffalo Bill and the Wild West Show and other side topics. The book alludes to the difficulty of the politics of the tower, the actual engineering of the tower, and the building/construction of the tower. The design of the elevators seemed like a side mention. The life of the tower since the World's Fair, too, could have been expanded. In short, I would have liked more about the tower itself - the title of the book.

That being said, it was interesting and the characters and stories were fun to read.

I don't think the comparison to Devil in the White City is fair or accurate, unless they put that only because they are both about world exhibitions. The two stories are very different, and the writing is not at all the same. If you have to choose one, I would recommend Devil in the White City much more highly.