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.