You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Canadians have demonstrated a remarkable sense of unity about protection of their "cultural industries" during the continuing national debate over free trade. This study of the effect of American popular culture on Canada is therefore particularly relevant.
The story about baseball's being invented in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839 by Abner Doubleday served to prove that the U.S. national pastime was an American game, not derived from the English children's game of rounders as had been believed. The tale, embraced by Americans, has long been proven false but to this day, Cooperstown is celebrated as the birthplace of baseball. The story has captured the hearts of millions. But who spun that tale and why? This book provides a surprising answer about the origins of America's most durable myth. It seems that Abner Graves, who espoused Cooperstown as the birthplace of the game, likely was inspired by another story about an early game of baseball. The stories were remarkably similar, as were the men who told them. For the first time, this book links the stories and lives of Graves, a mining engineer, and Adam Ford, a medical doctor, both residents of Denver, Colorado. While the actual origins of the game of baseball remain subject to debate and study, new light is shed on the source of baseball's durable creation myth.
National Identity and Global Sports Events looks at the significance of international sporting events and why they generate enormous audiences worldwide. Focusing on the Olympic Games and the men's football (soccer) World Cup, the contributors examine the political, cultural, economic, and ideological influences that frame these events. Selected case studies include the 1936 Nazi Olympics in Berlin, the 1934 World Cup Finals in Italy, the unique case of the 1972 Munich Games, the transformative 1984 Games in Los Angeles, and the 2002 Asian World Cup Finals, among others. The case studies show how the Olympics and the World Cup Finals provide a basis for the articulation of entrenched and dominant political ideologies, encourage persisting senses of national identity, and act as barometers for the changing ideological climate of the modern and increasingly globalized contemporary world. Through rigorous scholarly analyses, the book's contributors help to illuminate the increasing significance of large-scale sporting events on the international stage.
This book represents an international effort by an assemblage of prominent sport historians to assess the worldwide scope, effects, and the residual influences of the German Turnen movement over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Sport is a global phenomenon engaging billions of people and generating annual revenues of more than US$ 145 billion. Problems in the governance of sports organisations, fixing of matches and staging of major sporting events have spurred action on many fronts. Yet attempts to stop corruption in sport are still at an early stage. The Global Corruption Report (GCR) on sport is the most comprehensive analysis of sports corruption to date. It consists of more than 60 contributions from leading experts in the fields of corruption and sport, from sports organisations, governments, multilateral institutions, sponsors, athletes, supporters, academia and the wider anti-corruption movement. This GCR provides essential analysis for understanding the corruption risks in sport, focusing on sports governance, the business of sport, planning of major events, and match-fixing. It highlights the significant work that has already been done and presents new approaches to strengthening integrity in sport. In addition to measuring transparency and accountability, the GCR gives priority to participation, from sponsors to athletes to supporters an essential to restoring trust in sport.
This is the previously untold story of the London Tecumsehs, an 1870s baseball team that rose to the top ranks of pro ball. The Tecumsehs of London, Ontario, were among the founding members of the International Association in 1877, the first league established to challenge the struggling National League, formed a year earlier. The team played against the top competition of the day and defeated nines from Chicago, St. Louis and elsewhere. They became the first champions of the International Association when they defeated Pittsburgh with the arm of Fred Goldsmith, one of the first curveball pitchers. This is also the story of the International Association, the only one of the six leagues challenging the primacy of the National League that has never been accorded major league status. To this day it has been relegated to minor league status to the detriment of some of the pioneer players in the game.
For a variety of political, climatic, ecological, security-related and other reasons, the Russian summer resort of Sochi by the Black Sea would seem a most unlikely candidate for the Olympic Winter Games. Despite this, the Games will be held there in February 2014, and the Russian leaders regard the Games as a highly prestigious project underlining Russia’s return to a status of great power in the contemporary world. This book conducts a thorough inventory of the contexts, characteristics and challenges facing the Sochi Games. It deals with the problems from Russian, Georgian, Abkhazian and Circassian perspectives and makes in-depth analyses of profound challenges related to matters such as identity, security, and ethnic relations. The book brings together an international group of eminent scholars representing different disciplinary perspectives, including political science, sports science, ethics, ethnology, and Caucasian studies.
Winner, 2019 NASSH Book Award, Anthology. The Cold War was fought in every corner of society, including in the sport and entertainment industries. Recognizing the importance of culture in the battle for hearts and minds, the United States, like the Soviet Union, attempted to win the favor of citizens in nonaligned states through the soft power of sport. Athletes became de facto ambassadors of US interests, their wins and losses serving as emblems of broader efforts to shield American culture—both at home and abroad—against communism. In Defending the American Way of Life, leading sport historians present new perspectives on high-profile issues in this era of sport history alongside research drawn from previously untapped archival sources to highlight the ways that sports influenced and were influenced by Cold War politics. Surveying the significance of sports in Cold War America through lenses of race, gender, diplomacy, cultural infiltration, anti-communist hysteria, doping, state intervention, and more, this collection illustrates how this conflict remains relevant to US sporting institutions, organizations, and ideologies today.
Base Ball is a peer-reviewed book series published annually. Offering the best in original research and analysis, it promotes study of baseball's early history, from its protoball roots to 1920, and its rise to prominence within American popular culture. This volume, number 12, includes thirteen articles on topics ranging from the career of pitcher Harry Coveleski, Philadelphia baseball pioneer Thomas Fitzgerald, and a baseball power couple, James and Harriet Coogan, to early Brooklyn baseball, the game in Canada during World War I, and the amateur teams sponsored by typewriter companies.
The origins of baseball are controversial. James A. Vlasich discusses the debates between two men intimately involved in nineteenth-century baseball, Henry Chadwick and Albert G. Spalding. Abner Graves of the Mills Commission claimed that Abner Doubleday had invented the game and he had done it in Cooperstown, New York. This claim was scrutinized at the time but the myth became etched into baseball history. Through the years, however, some critics have questioned the Mills Commission report. The problem is that the Baseball Hall of Fame is built on this shaky foundation. The lack of diligence on the part of Spalding's self-appointed committee has led to a credibility gap for the baseball shrine that continues a half century after its dedication. Indeed, the story of the building of the Baseball Hall of Fame is filled with intrigue worthy of a political thriller.