1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910782968903321

Titolo

The grit beneath the glitter [[electronic resource] ] : tales from the real Las Vegas / / edited by Hal K. Rothman and Mike Davis

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, : University of California Press, c2002

ISBN

0-520-93545-4

1-282-76241-9

9786612762413

1-59734-643-8

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (396 p.)

Altri autori (Persone)

RothmanHal <1958-2007.>

DavisMike <1946-2022.>

Disciplina

979.3/135034

Soggetti

HISTORY / United States / State & Local / West (AK, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NV, UT, WY)

Las Vegas (Nev.) History 20th century

Las Vegas (Nev.) Social conditions 20th century

Las Vegas (Nev.) Economic conditions 20th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Introduction: The Many Faces of Las Vegas -- Scripting Las Vegas: Noir Naïfs, Junking Up, and the New Strip -- Las Vegas of the Mind: Shooting Movies in and about Nevada -- Discordant Infrastructure -- Growth, Services, and the Political Economy of Gambling in Las Vegas, 1970-2000 -- Lighting Las Vegas: Electricity and the City of Glitz -- Build It and the Water Will Come -- The Social Costs of Rapid Urbanization in Southern Nevada -- Rise to Power: The Recent History of the Culinary Union in Las Vegas -- Class Struggle in Oz -- "Squeezing the Juice Out of Las Vegas": Reflections On Growing Up in Smalltown, USA -- I Didn't Know Anybody Lived There -- How I Became a Native -- Inside the Glitter: Lives of Casino Workers -- "She Works Hard for Her Money": A Reassessment of Las Vegas Women Workers, 1945-1985 -- The Racial Cauldron -- Inside Jean -- Looking into a Dry Lake: Uncovering the Women's View of Las Vegas A Film Journal -- Colony, Capital, and Casino: Money in the Real Las Vegas --



Who Puts the "Sin" in "Sin City" Stories? Girls of Grit and Glitter in the City of Women -- Nevada Goes Global: The Foreign Gaming Rule and the Spread of Casinos -- Canto: Las Vegas -- Contributors -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

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 city's 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.