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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The Green Table: Gambling Casinos, Capitalist Culture, and Modernity in Nineteenth-Century Germany

Abstract

dc:description

I draw on work in the sociology of risk to suggest that the increased role of chance in human affairs produced new claims of elite political and economic control and a willingness to use leisure activities like gambling to legitimize positions of power. The tension between this emerging ruling class and the radical social mobility on display at casinos helped define the unique mixture of universalism and exclusion that characterized nineteenth-century German liberalism. The case of the gambling casino illustrates that even as legal inequality gradually disappeared from European polities, hierarchy and status difference were re-inscribed on a new basis, rooted in cultural distinction and the ability to make decisions in risky circumstances.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Ph.D.
Level thesis:degree_level
Dissertation
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
History
Grantor
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Year dc:date
2015

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Carter, Everett John
Contributors dc:contributor
  • Liebersohn, Harry

Subjects

dc:subject × 1

Rights

Language dc:language
eng

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Identifier
(MiAaPQ)AAI3069979
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/84633

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
Base URL
www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Carter, Everett John. The Green Table: Gambling Casinos, Capitalist Culture, and Modernity in Nineteenth-Century Germany. Dissertation thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2142/84633