Description
Book SynopsisThe Project on Vegas shows how the Las Vegas Strip concentrates and magnifies American culture’s core truths. Among others, the Strip’s buffets, surveillance, large scale branding and consumption, and transformation of nature reflects larger trends and practices throughout America. Includes over 100 photographs by Karen Klugman.
Trade Review"[T]he chapter on surveillance and 'security aesthetics' is downright chilling. This study may not expose all of Las Vegas’s secrets, but it still feels like someone pulling back the curtain for a peek at the Wizard." * Publishers Weekly *
"
Strip Cultures explores all aspects of Vegas from the perspectives of art, photography and the visual, from the sensory experience to nature and technology, and brand and image. Every facet goes under the microscope, which makes for diverting reading in itself – viewing this city, its culture and its bizarre mix of inhabitants for the sheer theatre it is." -- Sam Marsden * Jackpot.co.uk *
"[A] book of often startling richness and complexity, often very finely written. ...
Strip Cultures is an admirably even-handed and non-judgemental account, for the most part, of a city whose openness allows its authors to experience it in some new ways. But as they make clear, it’s also a city whose pleasures come at a human cost. Without hectoring or harangue, but instead by steady accumulation of data and anecdote, that is the disturbing conclusion this book leaves." -- Richard J. Williams * Times Higher Education *
"This book is an excellent travelogue with pictures and commentary of the experience that is Las Vegas and American culture." -- Brad Eden * Journal of American Culture *
Table of ContentsIntroduction. Riding the Deuce 1
1. Framing Las Vegas "Reality" 23
2. Playing the Penny Slots 50
3. S.I.N. City 70
4. sH2Ow 110
5. Bread and Circuses 134
6. The Whole World on a Plate 160
7. Gaming the Senses 184
8. Nature in Vegas: Cultivating the Brand 215
9. The Shipping Container Capital of the World 243
10. Ghosts of Weddings Past, Present, and Yet to Come 290
11. Memories: Made in China 322
Epilogue. Sucker Bet 338
Bibliography 359
Index 367
