Grit Beneath the Glitter

Hal Rothman is Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Among his books are Devil's 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.

"Rothman and Davis have given us not only the gritty, often ugly reality behind the nation's 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 century's 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 world's 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. O'Connor, 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

• 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 Didn't 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 Women's 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