万国博览会在西方发展过程当中,扮有极为特殊的角色。成为西方大众消费之形式与空间的集结,甚至成为日后西方消费、展示空间的原型,是其一个方面。另一方面,博览会兴起的年代,也正是英国历史学家霍布斯鲍姆所说的“帝国的年代”,其主要举办国均是占有大量殖民地的西方“帝国” World Expo in the process of development in the West, has played a very special role. Become the assembly of the form and space of Western mass consumption, and even become the prototype of Western consumption and exhibition space in the future, on the one hand. On the other hand, the rise of the Expo was exactly what the British historian Hobsbawm referred to as “the era of the empire.” Its main host countries are all Western “empires” that occupy a large number of colonies.