From Steel to Slots

“As a case study of the steel industry’s decline and casino-based postindustrial economic development, From Steel to Slots offers up illuminating detail and storytelling.”—Catherine Tumber, In These Times

“From Steel to Slots delivers fine-grained cultural analysis at its best—a study in which history is alive and fluid, and the community is humane and complex. Taft writes eloquently about deindustrialization without tears and grasps the new order without rage. This subtle book illuminates much about the past, present, and future of the urban landscape.”—Jefferson Cowie, Cornell University

“A highly revealing and intellectually ambitious interpretation of a post-industrial landscape in flux. From Steel to Slots offers a fascinating look at the transformations that have occurred on the site of Bethlehem’s once iconic steel industry and its implications for those who live or work in its shadows. This ethnographic account makes unique and important contributions to a range of academic literatures and will become a critical text for those interested in deindustrialization, post-industrial economies, neoliberalism, or ‘casino capitalism.’”—Christine J. Walley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology