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The Grit Beneath the Glitter: Tales from the Real Las Vegas. . - Book Notes - book review
American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The, April, 2002
Rothman, Hal K. and Mike Davis. 2002. The Grit Beneath the Glitter: Tales from the Real Las Vegas. University of California. 388 pp. Index.
The origins of the unique American city of Las Vegas date back to the era of railroad-building, when the Union Pacific Railroad built a tiny town so its inhabitants could help repair broken trains on the route from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. But when the railroad left, this tiny town remained and did not die. Most improbably, it mutated over the decades into what is now a thriving entertainment metropolis and one of the most successful cities in North America. In 1995, Las Vegas attracted over 29 million visitors with an economic impact of nearly $20 billion. According to Eugene Moehring, "in 1997 an average of 5,857 people moved to the Las Vegas area each month, six times the national average" (Rothman and Davis 2002:78. Hereafter all references to this book will be by page number only.). All of these numbers can make your bored eyes glaze over except when you realize that Las Vegas is situated in the most improbable place imaginable for a major city--it sits on a desert!
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Rothman and Davis's book is a collection of 21 well-written essays on different aspects of this fascinating city. Las Vegas is the only American city situated where there is no natural water, as Jon Christensen remarks in his essay "Build It and the Water Will Come." And the water that is used is brought to Las Vegas in ever-increasing amounts since Las Vegas is still gaining population. The same holds for electricity, as Jay Brigham explains in his chapter entitled "Lighting Las Vegas: Electricity and the City of Glitz." As the editors remark in their interesting introduction, "Las Vegas is like a huge jumbo jet in which neither the pilot nor the crew, much less the passengers, have any idea of where it is ultimately headed or how high and far it can fly" (10).
Brian Frehner reflects on what is was like to grow up in Las Vegas. Kathryn Hausbeck reflects on how much sin there really is in "Sin City." This naturally leads its author to discuss the role women play in this popular tourist town. Women's issues are covered in several essays, to at least offset the knee-jerk impression that all Las Vegas women are scantily clad with a pleasure-centered ethos tattooed on their posteriors. Of course, the reality of Las Vegas is one of women from many walks of life tending to jobs from showgirl to kitchen worker staffing the huge restaurant areas of the gaming hotels. Joanne L. Goodwin's essay reassessing the role of women in the "fantasy city" makes the point that women have created real material opportunities for themselves and their families in this part of the world. The precise statistics showing which job categories are filled and to what extent are discussed but always within a readable informative narrative.
My own favorite essay is the one by Hal Rothman entitled "Colony, Capital, and Casino." This essay is organized around the main theses presented in the Nicholas Pileggi book and later the Hollywood film of the same name, Casino. While union pension funds did help with the financing of the casinos during the 1950s, and the Mafia did get on with skimming the money Out of certain casino counting rooms, the true story of the financing of the desert colony is far more interesting. Rothman takes us from the Teamster/Mafia financing era of the 1940s and 1950s to the role that Michael Milken's investment-banking firm, Drexel Burnham Lambert, played in the 1980s when it became the dominant financial force in Las Vegas. This was the era of Kirk Kerkorian and Steve Wynn and the creation of the vast spectacular hotels. While the Hollywood version has its strengths, the actual history of the period is just as interesting. Indeed, I was surprised to see how much of the mob ownership/influence of the gaming industry was inf luenced by the peculiar restrictions imposed on the ownership of the casinos by the Gaming Commission of State of Nevada itself!
College students in particular are intrigued by the glamour and the lure of the Las Vegas legend. This book offers a journalistic account of many of this city's features and characteristics, presented throughout against the backdrop of the popular urban legends about the city and its development. I do have one complaint: the title of the book is misleading. Beneath the glitter of Las Vegas is not so much grit as quite a bit of gold. I suppose there is grit as well, but the general impression I got from reading the book is that the gold is far more prevalent than the grit.
The editors are both professors of history. Rothman teaches at the University of Nevada and Davis at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. The other contributors to the book are artists, critics, and scholars who have one thing in common--they are Las Vegas "insiders" with a mandate to tell the reader the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Happily, the truth is interesting and makes for good reading. I recommend this book for courses as varied as urban planning, the city in history, civil engineering, and economic geography. At schools of management with courses in casino management, this book is a must.
COPYRIGHT 2002 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group
