Sports in South America: A History

by Matthew Brown

Overview

The first book to examine the transformation of sporting cultures in South America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
 
Sports in South America follows the transformation of sporting cultures in South America leading up to Uruguay’s hosting of the first FIFA Men’s World Cup in 1930. Matthew Brown shows how South American soccer culture, envied worldwide, sprang out of societies that were already playing and watching games well before British sportsmen arrived to teach “the beautiful game.” These vibrant and distinct sporting traditions, including cycling, boxing, cockfighting, bullfighting, cricket, baseball, and horse racing, were marked by South American societies’ Indigenous and colonial pasts and by their leaders’ desire to participate in what they saw as a global movement toward human progress. Drawing on a wealth of original archival research, Brown debunks legends, highlights the stories of forgotten sportswomen and Indigenous sports, and unpacks the social and cultural connections within South America and with the rest of the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300247527
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	01/10/2023
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Matthew Brown is professor of Latin American history at the University of Bristol. He is the author of From Frontiers to Football: An Alternative History of Latin America since 1800. He lives in Bristol, England.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Sports in South American History 1

Part 1 The Beginnings of Sports

1 Sports from the Margins 21

2 Colonial Sports 38

3 The Pioneering British 48

4 Education 69

5 Clubs 83

6 The Sports Business 98

Part 2 The Ends of Sports

7 Beauty 121

8 Endurance 135

9 Controlled Violence 147

10 Technology 162

11 International 176

12 The 1930 World Cup 199

Epilogue: World Champions, Local Histories 213

Notes 221

Bibliography 243

Index 269

Editorial Reviews

Sports in South America makes a compelling case for historians of sports across the globe to pay attention to local sports cultures. . . . Brown’s continental versus national focus and his ability to uncover practices hidden by Eurocentric definitions of modernity provide a model for historians of Latin America.”—April Yoder, Hispanic American Historical Review

“This book offers deep and nuanced insight into the sporting world in South America and is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the intricate dance between sports, globalization, urbanization, culture, and identity. It will guide scholars and aficionados through the early years of South American sports, and will become a classic.”—Christopher Gaffney, New York University

“Matthew Brown’s excellent book on the development of sport in South America before 1930 is not just for sports historians. His pathbreaking study provides significant insights on several sociocultural themes that are central to modern Latin American history—race, gender, neocolonialism, violence, and social discipline.”—Rory M. Miller, author of Britain and Latin America in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

“There is no such thing as a definitive history, but this first history of sports in South America is simply brilliant and unmatched. Matthew Brown has written a reference work for scholars and amateurs.”— Pablo Alabarces, University of Buenos Aires

“This book shows how South America’s preexisting sporting cultures intertwined and shaped global sporting history from 1862 until 1930. Brown’s insightful attention to local and touring sporting practices, experiences, and debates suggest new paths toward the decolonization of sports history.”—Ingrid Johanna Bolívar Ramirez, University of the Andes (Bogotá)

From the Publisher