Written by Jill Jonnes
Now THIS is the book Children of the Revolution SHOULD have been. Take a single, striking object, and make it the axix around which rest of the book pivots. Then sit back and enjoy the literary ride…
At 311 pages, Eiffel’s Tower manages to cover a great deal of ground with efficiency & brevity, without sacrificing any juicy detail or description. The Paris Exposition of 1889 makes for fascinating reading, as it allows for many inter-connected stories to be told in tandem with the main through line of the Eiffel Tower’s construction & opening. Personal journies (both joyous & painful), public adulation, rivalries, jealousies, and numerous machinations…both local, and international. All of this can be found in Eiffel’s Tower, and all of it is committed to print with considerable justice.
Name me another book where one can simultaneously explore the backgrounds of Buffalo Bill Cody, Annie Oakley, Gustave Eiffel, Vincent Van Gough, Thomas Edison, and dozens of other fascinating characters, without sacrificing quality detail for pace. Nothing in this book feels crowded, overbearing, or out of place. If anything, it’s the non-fiction equivalent of a short story collection, told with the dramatics of a soap opera, yet bathed in layers of quality research. It’s quite possibly the breeziest history book I have read in some considerable time. Republican belle epoque Paris, brash gilded-age America, and stuffy, resistant-to-change, monarchy-obsessed Europe…all collide within the pages of Eiffel’s Tower with wonderful, absorbing results.
It works as a piece of skillful scholarship AND as the kind of book to take with you on an airplane journey. It never outstays its welcome, and it actually leaves you panting for a sequel. But like the Eiffel Tower itself, this book stands on its own merits, inimitable. Thoroughly enjoyable, and thoroughly recommended.
