In Miniature by Simon Garfield

Why does Rod Stewart have a 124-foot long model railway? Why build a miniature Eiffel Tower that you have to saw in half to fit in the living room? What does the YouTube trend for tiny food tell us? Why would anyone want a ‘readable’ book that’s no larger than a fingernail? What is it about making big things small that so engrosses us? From architects’ models to villages of waist-high houses, model railways to a whole fleet of 20th century battleships floating in formation across a blue-baize-topped table, Simon Garfield takes us deep into the world of miniature things.

Garfield is at his discursive best when he takes a semi-niche subject and shows you just how omnipresent it is. He ranges widely, from the themed hotels of Las Vegas to a temple in a barn in Suffolk, dipping into the history and psychology of modelling, and the people who’ve spent their lives on such projects. Some models have deep historical significance: for William Wilberforce, the wooden model of a slave ship – complete with little shackled slaves – was instrumental in the campaign to abolish slavery in the 1790s and early 1800s.

Others are open attempts to recapture the order and freedom of childhood play. Most seem to confer a sense of control in a chaotic world – but few are as radical or as endlessly reproduced as the Eiffel Tower, with which the book begins and ends. This is an intriguing look at the world, shrunk down.