All the World's a Fair

A groundbreaking account of the ways the United States used world's fairs to extend its empire abroad and racial hierarchies at home In All the World's a Fair, Robert W. Rydell argues that America's nineteenth-century world's fairs served to legitimate racial exploitation at home and the creation of an empire abroad. He looks in particular to the "ethnological" displays of nonwhites—set up by showmen but endorsed by prominent anthropologists—which lent scientific credibility to popular racial attitudes and helped build public support for domestic and foreign policies. Rydell's lively and thought-provoking study draws on archival records, newspaper and magazine articles, guidebooks, popular novels, and oral histories to tell a new story of American history and empire.