Devil's Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth-Century American West [Paperback]

Hal Rothman (Author), Hal K. Rothman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 20, 2000 | Series: Development of Western Resources

The West is popularly perceived as America's last outpost of unfettered opportunity, but twentieth-century corporate tourism has transformed it into America's "land of opportunism." From Sun Valley to Santa Fe, towns throughout the West have been turned over to outsiders--and not just to those who visit and move on, but to those who stay and control.

Although tourism has been a blessing for many, bringing economic and cultural prosperity to communities without obvious means of support or allowing towns on the brink of extinction to renew themselves; the costs on more intangible levels may be said to outweigh the benefits and be a devil's bargain in the making.

Hal Rothman examines the effect of twentieth-century tourism on the West and exposes that industry's darker side. He tells how tourism evolved from Grand Canyon rail trips to Sun Valley ski weekends and Disneyland vacations, and how the post-World War II boom in air travel and luxury hotels capitalized on a surge in discretionary income for many Americans, combined with newfound leisure time.

From major destinations like Las Vegas to revitalized towns like Aspen and Moab, Rothman reveals how the introduction of tourism into a community may seem innocuous, but residents gradually realize, as they seek to preserve the authenticity of their communities, that decision-making power has subtly shifted from the community itself to the newly arrived corporate financiers. And because tourism often results in a redistribution of wealth and power to "outsiders," observes Rothman, it represents a new form of colonialism for the region.

By depicting the nature of tourism in the American West through true stories of places and individuals that have felt its grasp, Rothman doesn't just document the effects of tourism but provides us with an enlightened explanation of the shape these changes take. Deftly balancing historical perspective with an eye for what's happening in the region right now, his book sets new standards for the study of tourism and is one that no citizen of the West whose life is touched by that industry can afford to ignore.

This book is part of the Development of Western Resources series.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Tourism has been vital to the economic health of the American West for most of this century. In a penetrating look at the social, economic and psychological dynamics shaping the region's modern identity, Rothman, a University of Nevada-Las Vegas history professor, ably and exhaustively demonstrates that the tourism industry has also exacted high costs from many of the communities that have become the West's most popular travel destinations. The West derives much of its appeal as a tourist attraction, Rothman explains, from its place in the American cultural imagination as a kind of exotic elsewhere, a refuge from the postindustrial urban world. Such perceptions pressure Western communities to stay frozen in time, he maintains, and play up their quaintness. Consequently, tourist demands, not the needs of local residents, play the biggest role in determining the community's values and way of life. Moreover, even as it bolsters the local economy, the tourist industry mires many locals in low-paying, dead-end jobs. Thus, Rothman concludes, "Tourism is the most colonial of activities... because of its psychic and social impact on people and their places." As insightful and deftly argued as recent books on the region by Robert Kaplan and Timothy Egan, Rothman's study traces the history of Western tourism from the late 19th century to the present, exploring in comprehensive and eminently readable detail the ways in which the tourist industry has shaped communities as diverse as Santa Fe, Aspen and Las Vegas. Each has been transformed from a small, obscure town to a mythic destination, he argues, often leaving local residents trapped inside the myth that the tourists' imagination creates. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

In the post-Civil War years, Americans turned west to fulfill their dreams of a Manifest Destiny. Soon even common folks could travel to the West in large numbers, thanks to the railroad and then the automobile, which made popular attractions like Santa Fe, Las Vegas, and the national parks, ski areas, and dude ranches accessible to everyone. Eventually, tourism transformed the Western communities it touched. Rothman (history, Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas; Reopening the American West, Univ. of Arizona, 1998) examines this transformation, systematically addressing the social, cultural, environmental, and economic costs of tourism. Another interpreter of the "new Western history," he sees the West as a colony of Eastern industrial capital. Building on Earl Pomeroy's In Search of the Golden West (1957; Univ. of Nebraska, 1990. reprint) this is a vital and significant addition to the literature. Recommended for all libraries, especially those with Western Americana collections.?Patricia Ann Owens, Wabash Valley Coll., Mt. Carmel, IL
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Kansas (October 20, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0700610561
• ISBN-13: 978-0700610563
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #114,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a richly detailed assessment and critique, June 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Devil's Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth Century American West (Development of Western Resources) (Hardcover)

For discerning travelers planning a western vacation this summer, or for that matter, for anyone curious about the popular allure of the West, Hal K. Rothman's "Devil's Bargains" is a must read. Rothman, a professor of western and environmental history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, provides a richly detailed assessment and critique of the development of tourism as it has evolved from the late nineteenth century to the present in the inter-mountain West. Synthesizing the existing scholarship on tourism, enhanced by wide ranging primary research, Rothman reveals a fascinating, yet disturbing, underside to the glitz and glamour of the tourist economies firmly established in western resort towns from Santa Fe to Las Vegas.

"Devil's Bargains" presents a series of provocative histories recounting the development of resort towns and tourist sites across the inter-mountain West including the Grand Canyon, Santa Fe, Carlsbad Caverns, Steamboat Springs, Aspen, Vail, Sun Valley, and Las Vegas, among others. The book also codifies the history of tourism under a new interpretative framework which divides the development of tourism into three phases: cultural and heritage tourism, recreational tourism, and entertainment tourism. Beginning at the turn of the century with cultural and heritage tourism spawned by the transcontinental railroads seeking to expand passenger traffic, tourism evolved into recreational tourism made possible by the automobile and a growing fascination with exercise and the outdoors in the aftermath of World War I, and culminated after World War II with entertainment tourism dependent on the Jet airplane and the dramatic expansion of widespread prosperity, a leisure ethic, and a pervasive consumer culture. Rothman focuses on the Grand Canyon and Santa Fe to illustrate cultural and heritage tourism; various western ski resorts define recreational tourism; and Las Vegas embodies entertainment tourism. These three phases of tourist development reflect the historical transformation of tourism from an elite pastime to a more individualized, democratic experience, to a mass culture phenomena. They also reveal a process of economic development, reflecting the evolving strategies adopted by western communities to replace tapped out extractive economies.

Defining tourism as the quintessential service economy, the pinnacle of post-industrial capitalism, Rothman argues that the promises of tourist industries have been embraced as a panacea for economic decline in towns throughout the West. However, as his research reveals, locals and even "neonatives" have found tourism to be a bitter pill to swallow. Although the advent of tourist economies in places such as Jackson Hole, Steamboat Springs, and Sun Valley has resulted in phenomenal economic growth, prosperity has come with a price. As the book's title suggests, in the process of reviving the economy, tourism displaces locals with outside capital and corporate control, sapping a place of its soul, and leaving in its stead a facade of hollow images and a service economy manipulated by distant corporations whose only interest is the bottom line. What has emerged in places like Vail and Santa Fe is a two-tiered class system where workers who are predominantly people of color (Hispanic, African, or Filipino) hold low-paying, menial jobs providing for the comfort and amusement of wealthy second home owners and visitors. There is little room for an established community of year-round residents when the bottom line centers on the paying visitor. Las Vegas is the exception. In defining itself as the ultimate themed destination resort constantly reinventing itself to satisfy visitors' desires, Las Vegas remains one of the last places where unskilled workers can earn a middle-class income replete with benefits and job security. Las Vegas alone, according to Rothman, has succeeded at perfecting the service economy, becoming a model of sorts for the rest of the country. "The colony became the colonizer," he writes, exporting a model of entertainment tourism for a nation entranced by the spectacles of multi-media consumer culture.

In detailing the ways in which western communities reinvented themselves as tourist resorts, marketing an idealized western ambiance and a scripted history, and in the process losing control of the very community they sought to promote and preserve, Rothman provides a rich assessment of the social and political impact of tourist-based economies as they evolved from local ventures to corporate productions. But more than that, he presents a thoughtful and disturbing critique of the promises and realities of post-industrial, post modern capitalism as manifested in the twentieth-century tourist's West.

Marguerite S. Shaffer, Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina, Wilmington

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding! a book for anyone who deals with tourism, January 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Devil's Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth Century American West (Development of Western Resources) (Hardcover)

For those of us who live in tourist towns and see how the incredible number of visitors changes them, this is the book! It looks at a large number of places -- from Santa Fe to Maui, from Las Vegas to Aspen -- and shows in great detail how they change. It reads well too, on a par with better known authors like Robert D. Kaplan and Tim Egan. I heard the author speak here in town--I guess he lives here-- and it made me buy the book. I came away extremely impressed. This is not my usual reading. I'm more a John Grisham type. But this one rang bells for me. After I read this book, I was in Thailand on business and I found myself using Devil's Bargains as a lens for what I was seeing. The comparisons were striking and I wondered if this book might apply to more than the West. Well written and snappy, showing a lot of research, this one is a real winner, especially for anyone in city planning or tourist development.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Informative, fascinating, entertaining, January 12, 2003

By 

Eric Petticord (Detroit, MI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Devil's Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth Century American West (Development of Western Resources) (Hardcover)

I was born into the park service and lived the tourist experience. This book really helped me form a perspective about my early years growing up in western tourist and resort environments. Western history is fascinating, but this angle on western history really gives another intriguing dimension to america's perception of the mythic frontier.