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Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker

by James McManus

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Poker’s history, from parlor game to global pastime

$30.70 USD
$51.17 USD $30.70 USD
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Paperback New English

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Awards & Recognition

  • Editorial selection

    The New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice

    Identified as an Editors’ Choice selection.

AlbakiReads Editorial

Poker’s history, from parlor game to global pastime

James McManus places poker’s development in a broad historical and cultural frame, tracing influences from China, the Middle East, and Europe into the United States. The account follows the game through saloons and presidential parlors, its rise in popularity around the Civil War, and its later spread across continents and into television and cyberspace. Alongside the game’s changing reach, the book considers poker’s presence in American cultural life, including painting, fiction, film, and theater. Its 608 pages offer a wide-ranging history of both the game and the meanings attached to it.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Poker players interested in the game’s history and cultural reach
  • Readers exploring the history of card games
  • Those interested in poker’s place in American art and popular culture

Themes

Poker’s historical developmentCard games and popular culturePoker’s international spreadPoker in American cultural life

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE

Cowboys Full traces the story of poker from its roots in China, the Middle East, and Europe, through the back rooms of saloons and the parlors of U.S. presidents to its evolution as a global phenomenon. It describes how early Americans took a French parlor game and turned it into a national craze by the time of the Civil War. It explains how poker, once dominated by cardsharps, is now the most popular card game in Europe, East Asia, Australia, South America, and cyberspace, as well as on television. Along the way, James McManus examines the game's remarkable hold on American culture, seen in everything from Frederic Remington's paintings to countless poker novels, movies, and plays. Cowboys Full is raucous and fascinating, a lively, definitive history of the game that, more than any other, explains who we are and how we operate.

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