Miniature: How Small Things Illuminated the World

Today’s post is on Miniature: How Small Things Illuminated the World by Simon Garfield. It is 323 pages long and is published by Atria Books. The cover has the Eiffel Tower on it in a match book. The intended reader is someone who is interested in unusual history.  There is no foul language, no sex, and no violence in this book. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the dust jacket - A delightful, entertaining, and illuminating investigation into out peculiar fascination with making things small and what small things tell us about the world at large.
Tiny Eiffel Towers, Platoons of brave toy soldiers. A doll’s house created for a queen. Miniature crime scenes meant to catch killers. Flea circuses. Model villages and railways. And much more.
Bringing together history, psychology, art, and obsession, Simon Garfield explores what fuels the strong appeal of miniature objects among collectors, modelers, and everyday people. The toys we enjoy as children invest us with a rare power at a young age, bestowing a taste of adult-size authority. For some, the desire to play with small things becomes a desire to make small things. Controlling a tiny, scaled-down world can give us new perspectives and restore our sense of order uncertain times.
In Miniature takes a bog look at small things and teaches us to find greatness in the diminutive.

Review – Another unusual topic for Garfield and another delightful read. Garfield starts with the full sized Eiffel Tower and the first people to miniaturize it. Over the course of the book, Garfield introduces the reader to all kinds of people who miniaturize the world; from artist to make a point to a village to remember the past. The writing is top-notch as to be expected of Garfield. The research is good but the interviews with the people who spend their lives making things small are the best parts of the story. Garfield gets access to the people and then brings them to the reader in wonderful ways. Learning the history of miniaturization was interesting and Garfield makes it fun with little jokes and side notes about the different topics. If you are a fan of Garfield or curious about the history of miniatures then you should check this book out.

I give this book a Four out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.