Journal of Art Historiography (Dec 2013)
‘Images of Globalisation: Paris 1889’. Review of Beat Wyss, Bilder von der Globalisierung. Die Weltausstellung von Paris 1889. Berlin: Insel Verlag, 2010
Abstract
This review analyses the study of the Paris World’s Fair of 1889 by Beat Wyss. It considers the strengths and weaknesses of Wyss’s interpretation, but also examines it in the larger context of literature on world fairs. It argues that Wyss’s book exemplifies a common pattern in scholarly studies of world fairs during the nineteenth century, namely, a tendency to focus on their function as forms of cultural representation, i.e. their role in advancing specific notions of regional, national and imperial identity. The review does not dispute that this was a central aspect of the world fairs, but it also points towards the omissions in such studies. Not only were the world fairs founded as a means of promoting liberal ideas of free trade, they were also used to display the latest technologies in a wide array of activities, such as industrial manufacturing, forestry and farming. These subjects are almost never examined in any depth in the literature on world fairs, the result of a partial and limited approach to world fairs. The review argues that for all its strengths, Wyss’s book exemplifies this approach.
