The gripping history of electricity and how the fateful collision of Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse left the world utterly transformed.In the final decades of the nineteenth century, three brilliant and visionary titans of America’s Gilded Age—Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse—battled bitterly as each vied to create a vast and powerful electrical empire. In Empires of Light, historian Jill Jonnes portrays this extra...

The story of the world-famous monument and the extraordinary world’s fair that introduced it, by the author of Conquering Gotham and Urban ForestsIn this first general history of the Eiffel Tower in English, Jill Jonnes-acclaimed author of Conquering Gotham-offers an eye- opening look not only at the construction of one of the modern world's most iconic structures, but also the epochal event that surrounded its arrival as a wonder of the ...

Dans la lignée des livres d'Erik Larson, une formidable reconstitution de l'Exposition Universelle de 1889 et de la construction de la tour Eiffel.Quand Gustave Eiffel remporte le concours lui permettant de concevoir une immense tour d'acier destinée à être l'attraction principale de l'Exposition universelle de Paris en 1889, il n'imagine pas la levée de boucliers qui l'attend. Hors de question que ce " squelette disgracieux et géant ", dixit Guy de Maupas...

Thirty-five years after this landmark of urban history first captured the rise, fall, and rebirth of a once-thriving New York City borough—ravaged in the 1970s and ’80s by disinvestment and fires, then heroically revived and rebuilt in the 1990s by community activists—Jill Jonnes returns to chronicle the ongoing revival of the South Bronx. Though now globally renowned as the birthplace of hip-hop, the South Bronx remains America’s poorest urban congressional district. In this new edition, ...

**“Far-ranging and deeply researched, Urban Forests reveals the beauty and significance of the trees around us.” *—*Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction“Jonnes extols the many contributions that trees make to city life and celebrates the men and women who stood up for America’s city trees over the past two centuries. . . . An authoritative account.” —Gerard Helferich, The Wall Street Journal“We all know that tre...

In the final decades of the nineteenth century, three brilliant and visionary titans of America's Gilded Age—Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse—battled as each vied to create a vast and powerful electrical empire. In Empires of Light, historian Jill Jonnes portrays this extraordinary trio and their riveting and ruthless world of cutting-edge science, invention, intrigue, money, death, and hard-eyed Wall Street millionaires. At the heart of the story are Thomas Al...

“Superb. [A] first-rate narrative” (The Wall Street Journal) about the controversial construction of New York’s beloved original Penn Station and its tunnels, from the author of Eiffel's Tower and Urban ForestsAs bestselling books like Ron Chernow's Titan and David McCullough's The Great Bridge affirm, readers are fascinated with the grand personalities and schemes that populated New York at the close of the nineteenth c...

Reminiscent of Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City, this fascinating account from acclaimed author Jill Jonnes recaptures the 1889 Paris World's Fair. Casting vehement criticism aside, Gustave Eiffel built his tower to be the fair's centerpiece. Perched at the top all summer, he hosted a string of dignitaries.

As nature's largest and longest-lived creations, trees play an extraordinarily important role in our cities; they are living landmarks that define space, cool the air, soothe our psyches, and connect us to nature and our past. Today, four-fifths of Americans live in or near urban areas, surrounded by millions of trees of hundreds of different species. Despite their ubiquity and familiarity, most of us take trees for granted and know little of their fascinating natural history or remarkable...

The demolition of Penn Station in 1963 destroyed not just a soaring neoclassical edifice but also a building that commemorated one of the last century's great engineering feats—the construction of railroad tunnels into New York City. Now, in this gripping narrative, Jill Jonnes tells this fascinating story—a high-stakes drama that pitted the money and will of the nation's mightiest railroad against the corruption of Tammany Hall, the unruly forces of nature, and the machinations of labor a...

Eiffel's Tower for Young People is a vivid, lively pageant of people and cultures meeting—and competing—on the world stage at the dawn of the modern era.The 1889 World's Fair was a worldwide event showcasing the cutting-edge cultural and technological accomplishments of the world's most powerful nations on the verge of a new century. France, with its long history of sophistication and cultivation and a new republican government, presented the Eiffel Tower, the world's tall...