The Grit Beneath the Glitter: Tales from the Real Las Vegas by Hal Rothman (Engl

Description: The Grit Beneath the Glitter by Hal Rothman, Mike Davis Long-time residents and professionals reflect on the transformation of one of the fastest-growing and most famous cities on Earth, Las Vegas. They offer a portrait of the other side of the city - the people and institutions that support the glitter of the gaming and entertainment industry. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description The Grit Beneath the Glitter is the first real look at the new Las Vegas from the inside. In it, long-time residents as well as professionals reflect on the transformation of one of the fastest-growing and most famous cities on earth, yet one about which relatively little is known. They offer a lively and compelling portrait of the other side of Las Vegas: the people and institutions that support the glitter of the gaming and entertainment industry. Examining a range of topics--from the citys commercial history, labor conditions, and environmental problems to an analysis of the famous lights of the Strip--the contributors uncover the contradictions between the illusion and the reality of the city, the seam between fantasy and the life it masks. The essays in this collection explore the world that employees experience when they enter gaming palaces from an employee entrance in a back parking lot rather than through the scripted doors of casino/hotel palaces. They take readers into the neighborhoods where 1.4 million Americans now live, attend school, eat dinner, and go to work. Flap "Rothman and Davis have given us not only the gritty, often ugly reality behind the nations brightest lights but also the touching human drama that is the essence of our most emblematic and enigmatic city. From the grind joints of Glitter Gulch to the mammoth theme hotels of the twenty-first-century Strip, this collection blends marvelously the best old-fashioned scholarship and investigative reporting with the finest postmodern literary sensibility and journalism. To understand the new West, and thus the new centurys America, begin here."--Sally Denton and Roger Morris, authors of The Money and the Power: The Making of Las Vegas and Its Hold on America, 1947-2000 "Like rabbits mesmerized by a snake, cultural critics have been locked onto the public spectacle of Las Vegas for so long theyve taken its facades for its entirety. But what is now surely the greatest show on earth is in every sense of the word a production. That production requires extraordinary natural resources and the grueling labor offstage of producers-hotel maids, construction workers-and as a byproduct has generated a vast city that says far more about the scary state of things than all the sequins on all the nipples on the strip. Grit Beneath the Glitter gets that picture whole, in an exhilarating, unsettling way."--Rebecca Solnit, author of Hollow City: The Siege of San Francisco and the Crisis of American Urbanism and Savage Dreams: A Journey into the Landscape Wars of the American West "Most of us have ideas about Las Vegas. (In 1999 it surpassed Mecca as the worlds top tourist attraction.) But what is it like to live there, to work there? How long can it keep reshaping itself and what does its example mean for the future? In this book, artists, critics, and scholars, all with an intimate knowledge of the place, combine forces to explain this latest version of the American dream, compelling the attention of anyone interested in what the urban future holds. Their insights will amaze you."--Carol A. OConnor, co-editor of The Oxford History of the American West "There is no other book about Las Vegas, that playground of paradox, as entertaining or fascinating as this. In puzzling over whether Las Vegas is a place of resounding ordinariness or the latest in American dream capitals, the contributors to this volume serve up a veritable banquet of delicious mind-food, one delicious entree following another. Bravo!"--Dennis R. Judd, co-author of The Tourist City Author Biography Hal Rothman is Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Among his books are Devils Bargains (1998), The Greening of a Nation? (1998), and Neon Metropolis: How Las Vegas Started the 21st Century (due out in 2002). Mike Davis is Professor of History at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. He is the author of City of Quartz (1992) and Ecology of Fear (1998), among other books. Table of Contents Introduction: The Many Faces of Las Vegas Hal Rothman and Mike Davis Part I: Image and Reality Scripting Las Vegas: Noir Naifs, Junking Up, and the New Strip Norman M. Klein Las Vegas of the Mind: Shooting Movies in and about Nevada Francisco Menendez Discordant Infrastructure Peter Goin Part II: Nuts and Bolts Growth, Services, and the Political Economy of Gambling in Las Vegas, 1970--2000 Eugene Moehring Lighting Las Vegas: Electricity and the City of Glitz Jay Brigham Build It and the Water Will Come Jon Christensen The Social Costs of Rapid Urbanization in Southern Nevada Robert E. Parker Rise to Power: The Recent History of the Culinary Union in Las Vegas Courtney Alexander Class Struggle in Oz Mike Davis Part III: Voices "Squeezing the Juice Out of Las Vegas": Reflections On Growing Up in Smalltown, USA Brian Frehner I Didnt Know Anybody Lived There Shannon McMackin How I Became a Native William N. Thompson Inside the Glitter: Lives of Casino Workers Kit Miller Part IV: Shaping Life "She Works Hard for Her Money": A Reassessment of Las Vegas Women Workers, 1945--1985 Joanne L. Goodwin The Racial Cauldron Mike Davis Inside Jean Constance Devereaux Looking into a Dry Lake: Uncovering the Womens View of Las Vegas 000 Amie Williams Part V: From Pariah to Paradigm Colony, Capital, and Casino: Money in the Real Las Vegas Hal Rothman Who Puts the "Sin" in "Sin City" Stories? Girls of Grit and Glitter in the City of Women Kathryn Hausbeck Nevada Goes Global: The Foreign Gaming Rule and the Spread of Casinos William N. Thompson Canto: Las Vegas Richard Misrach Contributors Index Review "Rothman and Davis have given us not only the gritty, often ugly reality behind the nations brightest lights but also the touching human drama that is the essence of our most emblematic and enigmatic city. From the grind joints of Glitter Gulch to the mammoth theme hotels of the twenty-first-century Strip, this collection blends marvelously the best old-fashioned scholarship and investigative reporting with the finest postmodern literary sensibility and journalism. To understand the new West, and thus the new centurys America, begin here."-Sally Denton and Roger Morris, authors of The Money and the Power: The Making of Las Vegas and Its Hold on America, 1947-2000; "Most of us have ideas about Las Vegas. (In 1999 it surpassed Mecca as the worlds top tourist attraction.) But what is it like to live there, to work there? How long can it keep reshaping itself and what does its example mean for the future? In this book, artists, critics, and scholars, all with an intimate knowledge of the place, combine forces to explain this latest version of the American dream, compelling the attention of anyone interested in what the urban future holds. Their insights will amaze you."-Carol A. OConnor, co-editor of The Oxford History of the American West; "There is no other book about Las Vegas, that playground of paradox, as entertaining or fascinating as this. In puzzling over whether Las Vegas is a place of resounding ordinariness or the latest in American dream capitals, the contributors to this volume serve up a veritable banquet of delicious mind-food, one delicious entree following another. Bravo!"-Dennis R. Judd, co-author of The Tourist City Details ISBN0520225384 Short Title GRIT BENEATH THE GLITTER Pages 388 Publisher University of California Press Language English ISBN-10 0520225384 ISBN-13 9780520225381 Media Book Format Paperback Year 2002 Imprint University of California Press Subtitle Tales from the Real Las Vegas Country of Publication United States Edited by Hal Rothman Birth 1958 Edition 1st Place of Publication Berkerley Author Mike Davis DOI 10.1604/9780520225381 UK Release Date 2002-03-15 AU Release Date 2002-03-15 NZ Release Date 2002-03-15 US Release Date 2002-03-15 Publication Date 2002-03-15 DEWEY 979.3135 Illustrations 65 b-w photographs, 3 tables Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:159511942;

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