In Las Vegas, people seem to believe, the prosperity spawned by tourism and gaming can make them whole, financially and spiritually. Las Vegas now melds fun, work, and wealth, showing a path toward the brightest vistas of the post-industrial world. It is the first city of the twenty-first century.

Las Vegas was and is a hard town that will make you pay for your inability to restrain your desires.... If you have a weakness, Las Vegas will punish you.

From its founding, [Nevada] has always struggled to belong. It has had a series of masters--the mining industry, the railroads, the federal government, and now gaming and tourism--that have driven the state's economy and compelled its direction.

In Las Vegas, people seem to believe, the prosperity spawned by tourism and gaming can make them whole, financially and spiritually. Las Vegas now melds fun, work, and wealth, showing a path toward the brightest vistas of the post-industrial world. It is the first city of the twenty-first century.

Las Vegas is the therapeutic ethos of our time run amok, our socio-psychological promise to ourselves to be eternally young writ large on the landscape of aging self-indulgence.

Las Vegas is still socially sanctioned deviance. Its brand is just more comfortable to more Americans than it used to be.

Capitalism is a warrior culture, a hierarchical mode, and Las Vegas is its epitome.