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Article: Fair play.(Book Review)
- Article from:
- The Washington Monthly
- Article date:
- May 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Washington Monthly Company. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson Crown Publishing, $25.95
IN THE LATE 19TH CENTURY, THE Eastern elite considered Chicago a cultural backwater, a "crude, upstart, pork-packing city," in the words of one New York editor, with a vulgar populace and a foul, rotting stench rising from the stockyards. Chicago had just eclipsed Philadelphia to become the nation's second-largest city, but its political and business leaders longed for respect and knew that a galvanizing event would force the snobs back east to take the city seriously. France had held its Exposition Universelle, a World's Fair ...