More Than Just a Game: Sports in American Life Since 1945

by Kathryn Jay

Overview

More Than Just a Game tracks the explosion of the sports industry in the United States since 1945 and how it has shaped class, racial, gender, and national identities. By examining both professional and intercollegiate sports such as baseball, football, basketball, golf, tennis, and stock car racing, Kathryn Jay looks at the impact of packaging, salary, hype, corporate sponsorship, drug use, and the presence of women and African American players. Jay also considers the persistent belief that sports encourage good citizenship and morality despite a rise in cheating and violent behavior and an unabashed emphasis on financial gain. More Than Just a Game is a fascinating exploration of a phenomenon that has engaged the American imagination and thrilled fans for decades.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231500708
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	06/02/2004
Series:	Columbia Histories of Modern American Life
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	978,128
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Kathryn Jay was most recently an assistant professor of history and director of American studies at Barnard College.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Sports, the American Way
An Athletic Cold War
A Brave New World
Making Sense of the Sixties
Walking the Picket Line and Fighting for Rights
Competing on the Open Market
High-Priced Heroes Go Global

What People are Saying About This

Michael Oriard

From the Olympics to skateboarding, from racial integration to Title IX, from triumphs of the human spirit to crass commercialism, it's all here, the wonderful and appalling world of American sport since World War II. More Than Just a Game is always interesting, often insightful, and never dull. This is a book both to learn from and to enjoy.

— Michael Oriard, author of King Football and Reading Football: How the Popular Press Created an American Spectacle

Editorial Reviews

More Than Just a Game will be an important source for historians and sociologists in years ahead...

Indianapolis Star - Lawrence S. Connor

Dr. Jay has produced a useful and thoughtful volume... it offers much insight into, and raises important questions about, recent developments in American Sport.

The Journal of American History - Richard C. Crepeau

[Jay] traces the complex evolution of sports in American society over the course of the past sixty years, explaining how and why the major sports... have become a multibillion-dollar industry, as well as a major influence on and reflection of American society.

Forecast

Her judgments are sharp, her insights astute, and her breadth remarkable...Highly recommended.

Choice

A valuable and necessary read... Riveting.

Aethlon - Terry Martin

A valuable and necessary read... Riveting.

— Terry Martin

Aethlon

Dr. Jay has produced a useful and thoughtful volume... it offers much insight into, and raises important questions about, recent developments in American Sport.

— Richard C. Crepeau

The Journal of American History

More Than Just a Game will be an important source for historians and sociologists in years ahead...

— Lawrence S. Connor

Indianapolis Star