The Statue of Liberty looks inevitable today—as though the green figure in New York Harbor was always destined to stand there. In reality, the project came dangerously close to becoming an unfinished international embarrassment. France completed the colossal copper statue, but the United States struggled to finish the pedestal beneath it. Fundraising slowed, construction stopped,…
Paris without the Eiffel Tower is difficult to imagine. Its iron silhouette appears on postcards, films, advertisements and souvenirs so often that it feels as permanent as the city itself. Yet the tower began with a limited operating agreement, an uncertain future and a very real possibility that it would be dismantled after only two…
Viewed from a distance, the ancient world can seem to be repeating itself. Monumental structures rise from Egypt’s desert, the royal cemeteries of ancient Kush, the cities of Mesoamerica and the burial landscapes of imperial China. Many are broad at the bottom, narrow toward the top and immediately recognizable as pyramid-shaped. That resemblance has inspired…