The international exhibitions held around the world between 1851 and 1939 were spectacular gestures, which briefly held the attention of the world before disappearing into an abrupt oblivion, of the victims of their planned temporality. Known in Britain as Great Exhibitions, in France as Expositions Universelles and in America as World's Fairs, the genre became a self-perpetuating phenomenon, the extraordinary cultural spawn of industry and empire. Thoroughly in the spirit of the first industrial age, the exhibitions illustrated the relation between money and power, and revelled in the belief that the uncontrolled expression of that power was the quintessence of freedom. Philanthropy found its place on exhibition sites functioning as a conscience to the age although even here morality was inextricably linked to economic efficiency and expansion. Imperial achievement was celebrated to the full at international exhibitions. Nevertheless, most World's Fairs maintained an imperial element and out of this blossomed a vibrant racism. Between 1889 and 1914, the exhibitions became a human showcase, when people from all over the world were brought to sites in order to be seen by others for their gratification and education. In essence, the English national profile fabricated in the closing decades of the nineteenth century was derived from the pre-industrial world. The Fine Arts were an important ingredient in any international exhibition of calibre. This book incorporates comparative work on European and American empire-building, with the chronological focus primarily on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when these cultural exchanges were most powerfully at work. The Great Exhibition of 1850 transformed everyone's vision of what an exhibition might be. The first truly international event of its kind, it was an encyclopaedic attempt to sum up the progress of the world so far. But it was not simply a cultural manifestation aiming to educate and enlighten: it also had very particular social and political motives. At the core of the Exhibition was the imperial idea, that Europe in general and Britain in particular led and controlled the world. After 1851, other Western nations staged their own exhibitions, these frequently being larger and more flamboyant than the British prototype. Amongst these, the Expositions Universelles held in France and the World's Fairs held in America were the most impressive. Into the twentieth century the scale and opulence of the exhibitions reached a pitch which now defies imagination. Socio-political motives often dominated, the objects on display conveying a plethora of coded messages to their massive audiences. Ephemeral Vistas attempts to understand these messages, returning the exhibitions as far as possible to their original historical contexts. Many exhibitions which have fallen into obscurity are reassessed, and new material on well known events is presented. Much of this is of interest not only to art and design historians, but also to anthropologists, sociologists, social and political historians, and all those interested in popular culture. In a wider sense, the book is of general interest for the way it reveals exhibitions as creators of lasting monuments. Cities were transformed to accommodate exhibitions, and in many instances features remain to mark the places where these extraordinary events took place.