A Brief History of American Sports
Elliott J. Gorn and Warren Goldstein show us where our games and pastimes came from, how they developed, and what they have meant to Americans. The great heroes of baseball and football are here, as well as the dramatic moments of boxing and basketball. Beyond this, the authors show us how sports fit into the larger contours of our past.
 
For this new edition, the authors have updated the book to include discussion of performance-enhancing drugs; player salaries, unions, and the business of internationalizing sport; Title IX and gender in American sports; race, especially the entry of Latino and Asian athletes; and the corporatization of amateur athletics. A Brief History of American Sports reveals that from colonial times to the present, sports have been central to American culture, and a profound expression of who we are.
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A Brief History of American Sports
Elliott J. Gorn and Warren Goldstein show us where our games and pastimes came from, how they developed, and what they have meant to Americans. The great heroes of baseball and football are here, as well as the dramatic moments of boxing and basketball. Beyond this, the authors show us how sports fit into the larger contours of our past.
 
For this new edition, the authors have updated the book to include discussion of performance-enhancing drugs; player salaries, unions, and the business of internationalizing sport; Title IX and gender in American sports; race, especially the entry of Latino and Asian athletes; and the corporatization of amateur athletics. A Brief History of American Sports reveals that from colonial times to the present, sports have been central to American culture, and a profound expression of who we are.
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A Brief History of American Sports

A Brief History of American Sports

A Brief History of American Sports

A Brief History of American Sports

Paperback(2nd Edition)

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Overview

Elliott J. Gorn and Warren Goldstein show us where our games and pastimes came from, how they developed, and what they have meant to Americans. The great heroes of baseball and football are here, as well as the dramatic moments of boxing and basketball. Beyond this, the authors show us how sports fit into the larger contours of our past.
 
For this new edition, the authors have updated the book to include discussion of performance-enhancing drugs; player salaries, unions, and the business of internationalizing sport; Title IX and gender in American sports; race, especially the entry of Latino and Asian athletes; and the corporatization of amateur athletics. A Brief History of American Sports reveals that from colonial times to the present, sports have been central to American culture, and a profound expression of who we are.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780252079481
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Publication date: 12/06/2013
Edition description: 2nd Edition
Pages: 344
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Elliott J. Gorn is Joseph A. Gagliano Professor of History at Loyola University Chicago. He is the author of The Manly Art: Bare-Knuckle Prize Fighting in America, Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America, and other books. Warren Goldstein chairs the Department of History at the University of Hartford. He is the author of the award-winning Playing for Keeps: A History of Early Baseball, William Sloane Coffin, Jr.: A Holy Impatience, and other books.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Part I America Becomes a Sporting Nation

1 Colonists at Play

"Virgin Land" 3

English Sports 6

The Virginia Ethic 17

The New England Way 30

The Middle Colonies 37

Sports and the New Nation 42

2 "Saints and Their Bodies": Sport Through 1860

The Adams Family 47

Victorian Culture and the Attack on Traditional Sports 49

The Beginnings of Modern American Sports 64

Muscular Christians and Brawny Brahmins 81

3 "Vigorous, Manly, Out-of-Door Sports": The Gilded Age

"Healthful and Invigorating Sports" 98

Sport and Society 105

The Rise of Mass Sports: Boxing and Baseball 114

Elite Sports 129

"The Strenuous Life" 138

Part II Sport and its Discontents

4 Sports with a Mission: Football and Basketball

Walter Camp and the Bureaucratization of the Strenuous Life 153

Football, Alumni, and the Control of the University 164

Progressives, Play, and Basketball 169

World War I: The Great Unifier 177

5 Play, Business, and Space: Sports and the Public Sphere

Home Teams 183

Sports Heroes and Mass Culture 188

Gender and Sport 197

Racial Integration 209

6 Money, Television, Drugs, and the Win: Dilemmas of Modern Sports

Amateur Ideals and Sporting Reality 222

Twentieth-Century Amateurism 228

The Impact of Television 236

The Historical Roots of the Drug Problem in Sports 241

7 Sports for a New Century

An Explosion of Sports 251

"The Steroid Era" 254

Money and Sport 263

The Level Playing Field 272

Epilogue 281

Bibliographic Essay 287

Index 309

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