Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker

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 games remarkable hold on American culture seen in everything from Frederic Remingtons 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.