Through colourful photographs and firsthand narrative detail, Picturing Las Vegas tells the story of a city whose history mirrors that of America itself: a tale of the frontier, of corruption and greed, of beauty and loss and ineffable hope. From its hardscrabble origins, to the Golden Age of the Rat Pack, to today's mind-blowing theme-park casinos, Las Vegas is the city that has it all. Mobsters. Mormons. Elvis and Wayne Newton, Siegfried and Roy. It's a place where change is the one constant, and where the pursuit of happiness is the only law. In the words of writer Chuck Palahniuk, it's the place that "looks the way you'd imagine heaven must look at night."