San Fran Invites the Worls

This is a wonderful book about the 1915 World's Fair told mostly though photographs, although with enough writing to help the reader understand the context around the building of the fair, in San Francisco, and abroad. It's not an exhaustive examination of the period or the fair, but if you're interested in San Francisco history, or in the International Expositions, of which this was the last of the grand U.S. expressions of the form that had begun in Chicago, this is the book. The photos track the fair from field to field, through construction, the short run, the closing and demolition. It shows not only the buildings but the exhibits, some of which feature humans as amusements, which would make us cringe today. It briefly touches on the various issues that arose during the fair, but mostly it's a book of great photos of this most exquisite fantasy world that existed for only 11 months, almost a century ago.