Description:
This book introduces the subject of international exhibitions to art and design historians and a wider audience as a resource for understanding the broad and varied political meanings of design during a period of rapid industrialization, developing nationalism, imperialism, expanding trade, and the emergence of a consumer society.
Review Quotes:
"This valuable addition to the body of scholarship on international exhibitions focuses on the role of design in communicating the character of emerging nation states. ... The book is a nuanced and varied collection that delves deeply into the politics of display and the display of politics."
- Journal of Design History
"The ten chapters of Expanding Nationalisms at World's Fairs: Identity, Diversity, and Exchange, 1851-1915 ... explore the 'complex representations of collective identity among interest groups' that were not part of the established powerhouses of ... Great Britain, the United States, and France. The book instead focuses on countries that were marginal in the political, geographical, or economic sense, in order to contribute to the discipline of global design history by disrupting the dominant Western viewpoint."
- West 86th
"Raizman and Robey present an excellent collection of case studies, in which each chapter opens up new avenues for the study of world's fairs and nationalism. ... These ten essays contribute new and sometimes surprising research to the already extensively studied field of world's fairs. This volume proves, once again, that this topic seems inexhaustible, and especially ripe for exploring the connections between materiality and politics."
- Design and Culture