In 1978 the Reverend Billy Graham himself consecrated Las Vegas's place in the American cultural mainstream by taking his "crusade for Christ" there. He found the resort "a nice place to visit," and pointed out that, while he did not gamble himself, the Bible said nothing definitive against the practice. This book is a social history of American gambling in a series of frontier settings ranging from seventeenth-century Jamestown to twentieth-century Nevada. The book points out the affinity between gambling and frontiers, showing how both thrived on high expectations, risk-taking, opportunism and movement, and both helped to shape a distinctive culture. The first half of the book paints a vivid picture of gambling in the colonial and early national frontiers, on the Missiissippi River, and in the California Gold Rush. Findlay describes how in the ninteenth century progessional gamblers, operating in towns and riverboats along the Mississippi, popularized casino games, and then tells how these gaming practices were transported to the mining frontiers of the Far West. The second half of the book traces Las Vegas' rise as America's ultimate resort. The culmination of almost four centuries of westward migration and chance-taking by Americans, Las Vegas represents a link between America's frontier past and the contemporary values of the Sunbelt culture. About the Author: John J. Findlay is Assistant Professor of United States History at the Pennsylvania State University.

People of Chance: Gambling in American Society from Jamestown to Las Vegas

Humor & Entertainment

Findlay, John M.

Puzzles & Games

Oxford University Press

More than one third of the human brain is devoted to the processes of seeing-vision is after all the main way in which we gather information about the world. This book is unique in focusing on vision as an "active" process. It goes beyond most accounts of vision where the focus is on seeing, to provide an integrated account of seeing and looking. Written by two leading vision scientists, this book will be valuable for vision researchers and psychology students.

Active Vision: The Psychology of Looking and Seeing (Oxford Psychology Series)

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Gilchrist, Iain D.

Mental Health

More than one third of the human brain is devoted to the processes of seeing--vision is after all the main way in which we gather information about the world. This book is unique in focusing on vision as an "active" process. It goes beyond most accounts of vision where the focus is on seeing, to provide an integrated account of seeing and looking. Written by two leading vision scientists, this book will be valuable for vision researchers and psychology students.

Psychology & Counseling

Parallel Destinies: Canadian-American Relations West of the Rockies (Emil and Kathleen Sick Book Series in Western History and Biography)

The Canadian West and the American Northwest offer a valuable setting for considering issues of borders and borderlands. The regions contain certain similarities, and during the first half of the nineteenth century they were even grouped together as a distinct political and economic unit, called the "Oregon Country" by Americans and the "Columbia Department" of the Hudson's Bay Company by the British. The essays in this volume -- which grew out of a conference commemorating the Oregon Treaty of 1846 -- view the boundary between Canada and the United States as a dividing line and also as a regional backbone, with people on each side of the border having key experiences and attitudes in common. In their eloquence and scope, they illustrate how historical study of Canadian-American relations in the West calls into question the parameters of the nation-state. The border has not had a single constant meaning; rather, its significance has changed over time and varied from group to group. The essays in Part One concern the movement of peoples and capital across a relatively permeable boundary during the nineteenth century. Many people in this era--especially Natives, miners, immigrants, and capitalists--did not regard the international boundary as particularly important. Part Two considers how the United States and Canada took pains to strengthen and enforce the international boundary during the twentieth century. In this era, the nation-state became more assertive about defining and defending the borderline. Part Three offers considerations of the distinctions, both real and imagined, that emerged during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries between Canada and the United States. Its essays examine different schools of history, divergent ideas toward wilderness, and the influence of anti-Americanism on Canadians' view of national development in North America.

History

Coates, Kenneth S.

Americas

University of Washington Press

Outstanding Title by Choice Magazine On the banks of the Pacific Northwest's greatest river lies the Hanford nuclear reservation, an industrial site that appears to be at odds with the surrounding vineyards and desert. The 586-square-mile compound on the Columbia River is known both for its origins as part of the Manhattan Project, which made the first atomic bombs, and for the monumental effort now under way to clean up forty-five years of waste from manufacturing plutonium for nuclear weapons. Hanford routinely makes the news, as scientists, litigants, administrators, and politicians argue over its past and its future. It is easy to think about Hanford as an expression of federal power, a place apart from humanity and nature, but that view distorts its history. Atomic Frontier Days looks through a wider lens, telling a complex story of production, community building, politics, and environmental sensibilities. In brilliantly structured parallel stories, the authors bridge the divisions that accompany Hanford's headlines and offer perspective on today's controversies. Influenced as much by regional culture, economics, and politics as by war, diplomacy, and environmentalism, Hanford and the Tri-Cities of Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick illuminate the history of the modern American West.

Atomic Frontier Days: Hanford and the American West (Emil and Kathleen Sick Book Series in Western History and Biography)

Hevly, Bruce W.

The Canadian West and the American Northwest offer a valuable setting for considering issues of borders and borderlands. The regions contain certain similarities, and during the first half of the nineteenth century they were even grouped together as a distinct political and economic unit, called the "Oregon Country" by Americans and the "Columbia Department" of the Hudson's Bay Company by the British. The essays in this volume ― which grew out of a conference commemorating the Oregon Treaty of 1846 ― view the boundary between Canada and the United States as a dividing line and also as a regional backbone, with people on each side of the border having key experiences and attitudes in common. In their eloquence and scope, they illustrate how historical study of Canadian-American relations in the West calls into question the parameters of the nation-state. The border has not had a single constant meaning; rather, its significance has changed over time and varied from group to group. The essays in Part One concern the movement of peoples and capital across a relatively permeable boundary during the nineteenth century. Many people in this era―especially Natives, miners, immigrants, and capitalists―did not regard the international boundary as particularly important. Part Two considers how the United States and Canada took pains to strengthen and enforce the international boundary during the twentieth century. In this era, the nation-state became more assertive about defining and defending the borderline. Part Three offers considerations of the distinctions, both real and imagined, that emerged during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries between Canada and the United States. Its essays examine different schools of history, divergent ideas toward wilderness, and the influence of anti-Americanism on Canadians' view of national development in North America.

Outstanding Title by Choice MagazineOn the banks of the Pacific Northwest's greatest river lies the Hanford nuclear reservation, an industrial site that appears to be at odds with the surrounding vineyards and desert. The 586-square-mile compound on the Columbia River is known both for its origins as part of the Manhattan Project, which made the first atomic bombs, and for the monumental effort now under way to clean up forty-five years of waste from manufacturing plutonium for nuclear weapons. Hanford routinely makes the news, as scientists, litigants, administrators, and politicians argue over its past and its future.It is easy to think about Hanford as an expression of federal power, a place apart from humanity and nature, but that view distorts its history. Atomic Frontier Days looks through a wider lens, telling a complex story of production, community building, politics, and environmental sensibilities. In brilliantly structured parallel stories, the authors bridge the divisions that accompany Hanford's headlines and offer perspective on today's controversies. Influenced as much by regional culture, economics, and politics as by war, diplomacy, and environmentalism, Hanford and the Tri-Cities of Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick illuminate the history of the modern American West.

Hegel, a re-examination (The Muirhead library of philosophy)

Rebo Productions

The American West conjures up images of pastoral tranquility and wide open spaces, but by 1970 the Far West was the most urbanized section of the country. Exploring four intriguing cityscapes—Disneyland, Stanford Industrial Park, Sun City, and the 1962 Seattle World's Fair—John Findlay shows how each created a sense of cohesion and sustained people's belief in their superior urban environment. This first book-length study of the urban West after 1940 argues that Westerners deliberately tried to build cities that differed radically from their eastern counterparts. In 1954, Walt Disney began building the world's first theme park, using Hollywood's movie-making techniques. The creators of Stanford Industrial Park were more hesitant in their approach to a conceptually organized environment, but by the mid-1960s the Park was the nation's prototypical "research park" and the intellectual downtown for the high-technology region that became Silicon Valley. In 1960, on the outskirts of Phoenix, Del E. Webb built Sun City, the largest, most influential retirement community in the United States. Another innovative cityscape arose from the 1962 Seattle World's Fair and provided a futuristic, somewhat fanciful vision of modern life. These four became "magic lands" that provided an antidote to the apparent chaos of their respective urban milieus. Exemplars of a new lifestyle, they are landmarks on the changing cultural landscape of postwar America.

Magic Lands: Western Cityscapes and American Culture After 1940

University of California Press

Essays consider both the nineteenth century, when the international border had limited power to restrict the movement of Native peoples, financial capital, or settlers' racist attitudes, and the strengthened boundary of the twentieth century, with its disputes over salmon runs, free trade, and World War II defence. Essays also explore the ways in which Canada and the United States have defined and preserved wilderness, the 1840s dispute over the Oregon Country, and U.S. attitudes that have provoked anti-Americanism in Canada. The U.S.-Canadian border has meant different things to different people, and those meanings have changed over time. The situation today is the result of the evolution in cross-border integration that took place in the past; each side of this borderlands region remains, in part, the creation of the other. Contributors are Carl Abbott, Ken Coates, Michael Fellman, John Findlay, John Lutz, Daniel P. Marshall, Jeremy Mouat, Galen Roger Perras, Chad Reimer, Joseph E. Taylor III, Patricia K. Wood, and Donald Worster.

Parallel Destinies: Managing Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century

Coates, Kenneth

McGill Queens Univ

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Findlay, John M.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Findlay, John M.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Findlay, John M.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

People of Chance: Gambling in American Society from Jamestown to Las Vegas

Active Vision: The Psychology of Looking and Seeing (Oxford Psychology Series)

Active Vision: The Psychology of Looking and Seeing (Oxford Psychology Series)

Parallel Destinies: Canadian-American Relations West of the Rockies (Emil and Kathleen Sick Book Series in Western History and Biography)

Atomic Frontier Days: Hanford and the American West (Emil and Kathleen Sick Book Series in Western History and Biography)

Parallel Destinies: Canadian-American Relations West of the Rockies (Emil and Kathleen Sick Book Series in Western History and Biography)

Atomic Frontier Days: Hanford and the American West (Emil and Kathleen Sick Book Series in Western History and Biography)

Hegel, a re-examination (The Muirhead library of philosophy)

Magic Lands: Western Cityscapes and American Culture After 1940

Parallel Destinies: Managing Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century