Book Review: The Devil in the White City
October 31st, 2006 by jay
It’s book review time again as I just finished another, ..yeah it’s been awhile but hey its football season!
My latest read, The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson is a non-fiction (well mostly) novel about how two men left their mark on the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair in completely different ways. One man Daniel Burnham created the most successful World’s Fair in history, while H. H. Holmes used the fair to feed his predatory instincts.
On the negative side I wasn’t impressed with the Larson’s overall style and early on the book did have some slow periods. However on the positive side it was an often entertaining historical account of events which occurred that I can’t believe I didn’t know about. Also having the story told from such contrasting views with the good work of Burnham versus the evil deeds of Holmes helped keep the story fresh from chapter to chapter.
Overall I enjoyed the book because I was interested in learning about Chicago during that time period and because it was a joy learning about all the famous firsts that took place at the fair. For example did you know that cracker jacks, the Ferris Wheel, alternating current, the term midway, and the snake dance song all started at the Chicago fair? And that’s just some of the many firsts, so if that interests you then you may want to give The Devil in the White City a read.
The waffle ice cream cone was also invented at a world’s fair.
One of my personal favorites is the Eiffel tower. Which was designed and built for the Paris worlds fair in the late 1800’s. At the time, it was the tallest structure on Earth. All the Parisians hated it and wanted it torn down.
Prior to that, Gustave Eiffel designed another structure we hold near and dear to our hearts; the Statue of Liberty.