Learning Las Vegas

Portrait of a Northern New Mexico Place

Las Vegas, New Mexico is the subject and muse of this provocative case study of place, exploring its history,geography, nature, and character through explorations of town, landscape, encounters with Las Vegans.

Reviews

"No, not that Las Vegas! We're talking here about the soulful one, the one where place and people matter. Learning Las Vegas offers teachers, tattoo artists, hangers-on, and hangers-out. If Learning Las Vegas doesn't give you a sense of the gritty, often contradictory reality of a remarkable and deeply rooted community, check your pulse: you may have expired."
-William deBuys

Reviews

"Learning Las Vegas is like a strolling conversation with Studs Terkel, J. B. Jackson, and Dorothea Lange. Rogers combines sixty-five telling interviews with local residents, her illuminating read of the cultural landscape, and plentiful clear-eyed portraits of the city and its people to create one of the most penetrating studies of place ever."
-Chris Wilson

Reviews

"Elizabeth Barlow Rogers's heartfelt and sometimes bittersweet portrait of Las Vegas, New Mexico, is an instant classic of Western Americana. Learning Las Vegas reveals the many faces, aspirations, and also tenacity of a southwestern railroad boomtown that has weathered the storms of history, conquest, and injustice yet boasts rich traditions of culture and picturesque architecture. Masterfully combining the perspectives of a journalist, anthropologist, landscape historian, and photographer, Betsy Rogers's compelling narratives and conversations with local residents reveal a community at the nexus of the American and Mexican frontiers, sometimes trapped by one or the other and sometimes transcending both."
-Elmo Baca