Fleeting Cities (2^nd Ed., 2nd ed. 2024) Imperial Expositions in Fin-de-Siècle Europe

Imperial expositions held in fin-de-siècle London, Paris and Berlin were knots in a world wide web. Conceptualizing expositions as meta-media, Fleeting Cities constitutes a transnational and transdisciplinary investigation into how modernity was created and displayed, consumed and disputed in the European metropolis around 1900.

1. Introduction: How to Read an Exposition,- 2. Berlin 1896: Wilhelm II, Georg Simmel, and the Berliner Gewerbeausstellung.- 3. Paris 1900: The Exposition universelle as a Century's Protean Synthesis.- 4. London 1908: Imre Kiralfy and the Franco-British Exhibition.- 5. Wembley 1924: The British Empire Exhibition as a Suburban Metropolis.- 6. Vincennes 1931: The Exposition coloniale as the Apotheosis of Imperial Modernity.- 7. Conclusion: Exhibition Fatigue, or the Rise and Fall of a Mass Medium.- Coda: Pictures at an Exhibition. 

Alexander C. Geppert is Emmy Noether Research Group Director at Freie Universität Berlin. He received his PhD from the European University Institute in Florence and has held fellowships in Berkeley, Paris, London, Vienna, Essen and at Harvard University. At present he is writing a book on the cultural history of outer space in the European imagination of the twentieth century.