A World's Fair Read and Watch List

The World's Fair has a long and storied history, but to us it's more a feeling and a worldview: one committed to optimism, bold ideas, and doing the impossible. These are the books, stories, essays, films, and videos that inspire us most. Together they give a glimpse of how we think about the past, present, and future.

If you think something belongs on this list, please tell us.

Books

• The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (2003)
• The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough (1977)
• The Gate by John van der Zee (1986)
• Magic Motorways by Norman Bel Geddes (1940)
• Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler (2006)
• Walt Disney and the Promise of Progress City by Sam Gennawey (2011)
• My Life and Work by Henry Ford (1922)
• The Double Helix by James D. Watson (1968)
• Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara (2022)
• Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance (2015)
• The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch (2011)
• The Future and Its Enemies by Virginia Postrel (1998)
• The Great Stagnation by Tyler Cowen (2011)
• Where Is My Flying Car? by J. Storrs Hall (2018)
• The Machinery of Life by David S. Goodsell (1993)
• The High Frontier by Gerard K. O'Neill (1976)
• 2081: A Hopeful View of the Human Future by Gerard K. O'Neill (1981)
• From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne (1865)
• The Shape of Things to Come by H.G. Wells (1933)
• The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (1950)

Short stories

• The Toynbee Convector by Ray Bradbury (1984)
• The Rocket by Ray Bradbury (1950)
• The Man Who Sold the Moon by Robert A. Heinlein (1950)
• Rescue Party by Arthur C. Clarke (1946)
• The Last Question by Isaac Asimov (1956)
• Exhalation by Ted Chiang (2008)

Essays

• It's Time to Build by Marc Andreessen (2020)
• We Need a New Science of Progress by Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen (2019)
• Innovation Starvation by Neal Stephenson (2011)
• Definite Optimism as Human Capital by Dan Wang (2017)
• Who Becomes an Inventor in America? by Bell, Chetty, Jaravel, Petkova, and Van Reenen (2019)
• Starship Is Still Not Understood by Casey Handmer (2021)
• Notes on Technology in the 2020s by Eli Dourado
• The Techno-Humanist Manifesto by Jason Crawford
• The New Needs Friends by the editors of Arena Magazine (2024)

Movies and TV

• Tomorrowland (2015)
• Things to Come (1936)
• Interstellar (2014)
• Apollo 13 (1995)
• October Sky (1999)
• Meet the Robinsons (2007)
• Ratatouille (2007)
• The Imagineering Story (2019)
• The High Frontier: The Untold Story of Gerard K. O'Neill (2021)

YouTube

• The Fair That Changed America by Defunctland
• The History of the 1964 New York World's Fair by Defunctland
• The History of Tomorrowland 1955 by Defunctland
• Walt Disney's City of the Future, E.P.C.O.T. by Defunctland
• We Stopped Dreaming with Neil deGrasse Tyson
• The Portal Story with Eric Weinstein
• Anton Ego’s review from Ratatouille

References

• Roots of Progress
• Stripe Press
• Pessimists Archive
• Works in Progress
• Not Boring by Packy McCormick
• A Century of Progress collection at the University of Illinois Chicago
• The 1964–65 New York World's Fair at westland.net