HISTORY · SPORTS
Richard O. Davies
Professor of history at the University of Nevada.
Most acclaimed
Main Street blues
1998
Richard O. Davies takes the reader through two hundred years of American history as reflected in the small Ohio farming village of Camden. Davies describes the development of the relatively self-sufficient community that emerged from the Ohio land rush of the early nineteenth century, a community that reached its apex during the 1920s and then entered into a period of slow decline caused by forces beyond its control. He details the roles of land speculation, the railroad era, the impact of the automobile, the emergence of a tightly knit community, and finally the post-World War II loss of business and population to the nearby cities of Dayton, Hamilton, and Cincinnati.
Betting the Line
A study of gambling, particularly sports gambling, and how it has thrived in American culture. According to Davies and Abram, the culture of betting results from two complementary influences in American society: risk-taking and speculation. This is the first effort by academic writers to describe and interpret the history of sports wagering in the United States. Although many books have been written about ₃how to bet and win, ₄ Betting the Line presents a serious history of this popular activity in Colonial and Civil War eras to today, from early betting on horse racing and baseball to the modern venues of basketball and football. By considering topics as diverse as the business of a bookie, the expansion of legalized gambling, and the increase in popularity of televised sports, the authors offer readers an insightful look into a practice that has become commonplace in American popular culture. In a mere seventy years, the number of states where gambling is legal jumped from one to forty-eight. Yet Nevada remains the only state where sports betting is legal. This book challenges many long-standing myths and stereotypes that revolve around the enterprise, arguing that sports gambling is reflective of the American free enterprise culture.
Rivals
1989
Flame Bennett was a successful advertising executive, who owed part of her success to her mentor Malcolm Powell. Powell wanted more than just thanks, but Flame had fallen for brash and powerful real-estate mogul Chance Stuart. He wanted Flame at any cost, but his lover, opera diva, Lucianna Colton, was determined that he would never have her. But without their knowing it, the fate of Flame and Chance had been sealed by the past,and a century-old legacy of greed, adultery and murder, would reach out its hand from the grave to ensare them both....