ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews international and imperial expos in the period 1851-1939 and the discussion falls into four sections. Section 2 provides a brief overview of the origins and development of international expos in general, and section 4 provides a comparable overview of imperial expos over the same period. In the course of these accounts two case studies of each of these types of expo are considered in particular, namely the 1851 Crystal Palace expo in London, to illustrate the international genre, and the 1924/5 Wembley expo also in London, to illustrate the imperial genre. In section 3 we consider issues of power and the production of expos, looking briefly at diplomatic and political networks, event-planning groups and cultural professions. In section 1, as a prelude to these accounts and inquiries, and to help develop the conceptual framework for the discussion, we consider two notable and relevant analyses of late nineteenth-century and early twentiethcentury public culture and events, namely Eric Hobsbawm’s account of ‘massproduced traditions’ and Tony Bennett’s account of ‘the exhibitionary complex’.
