Popular history

My most read is Erik Larons' The Devil in the White City, a popular history of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the serial killer H.H. Holmes who operated near the fair.  I don't have a lot to say about the book itself aside from enjoying it as a read and one bit about the structure.  The focus of the chapters shifts back and forth between those about Daniel Turnham, the chief designer/architect of the fair, and those about Holmes.  There are a few other chapters about other topics from time to time, but mainly they alternate between these two subjects.  As I read this, I found the dual narratives to be interesting in their own rights, but did not ever get a strong sense of the parallel.  I think the problem is that Larson wanted to show the dichotomy between the "white city" of the World's Fair that showcased the best of the Gilded Age and the gritty, crime-ridden "black city" of urban Chicago.  The polarization of the city is an interesting idea, and one that probably would hold up under a more rigorous history, but the problem comes from using Holmes as an emblem of the darkness in Chicago.  The World's Fair actually was the culmination of industry and genius coming together to create a magical place.  Larson shows this well and celebrates the achievements of it while remaining realistic about the difficulties behind it.  But Holmes' story does not precisely parallel this.  His story is one of the lengths one man will go to in order to fulfill his own dark fantasies.  His story is full of too much conjecture compared with the historical record of the fair.  This doesn't make the central idea of the book bad, it just throws it off balance.  Holmes' story stretches a bit thin at times when keeping up with the story of the fair.  This isn't Larson's fault.  After all, Holmes necessarily worked in secret while the fair was built on a world stage.  There just isn't as much to Holmes as there is to the fair.
This is a minor complaint, however.  Both sides of the story are well-written and well-researched and the whole was an enjoyable read.