World's Fairs and the End of Progress: An Insider's View, Used [Paperback]

World's fairs were created to show off the wonders of the industrial revolution. Great engines, presses, steel cannons, the typewriter, television, the elevator, even the Statue of Liberty first appeared at expos. But industrial progress has led to a polluted planet, and the very idea of progress needs to discover new direction. Can our society now find paths to sustainable development? World's fairs are flourishing, says the author. They are in a position once again to define an era. And it's actually happening. This book provides an overview of world's fairs at the turn of the millennium. It describes the nature of fairs, shows how they have evolved, and considers where our fairs may be headed. The author demonstrates how in varying degrees fairs have tried to cope with the progress/environment issue, and suggests how they (and by implication the society as a whole) can do a better job of it in the future. Because he has attended fifteen world's fairs, beginning with the Golden Gate International Exposition of 1939, and has written extensively about recent ones, Alfred Heller brings new perspectives to the subject. For example, he has been in a position to observe the evolving connection between expos and the themed entertainment industry, including world's fair shows that use film-based, multimedia techniques. For better or for worse, these have given world's fairs a new lease on life. In his book, he probes this development, not least in a chapter that compares Walt Disney's Epcot to a world's fair. Other highlights: a chapter entitled "World's Fairs in a Nutshell," in which the author distills almost sixty years of fairgoing experience into a few essentials for understanding the medium; a chapter on his fascination with "reconstructing" fairs at the sites where they took place, with the aid of materials from his collection; and chapters on fairs of the Twentieth Century, entitled "Futurama and Future" and "Turn of the Millennium." The final chapter imagines a world's fair of the future, Expo 2015 in San Francisco.

World's Fairs and the End of Progress: An Insider's View, Used [Paperback]