The exhibition was one of the great nineteenth-century projects for improving the world. Combining the Victorian virtues of communication, cooperation, and competition, it promised to advertise the choice products of civilization to a receptive public. The Inglorious Arts of Peace is the first comprehensive look at the history of these cultural extravaganzas in Canada.

Early in the nineteenth century, provincial governments began to sponsor exhibitions that advertised highly bred livestock and modern techniques of rotation and manuring to farmers. Hundreds of agricultural and...