How Soccer Explains the World

Author: Franklin Foer
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061864706
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 243

Book Description
“An eccentric, fascinating exposé of a world most of us know nothing about. . . . Bristles with anecdotes that are almost impossible to believe.” —New York Times Book Review “Terrific. . . . A travelogue full of important insights into both cultural change and persistence. . . . Foer’s soccer odyssey lends weight to the argument that a humane world order is possible.” — Washington Post Book World A groundbreaking work—named one of the five most influential sports books of the decade by Sports Illustrated—How Soccer Explains the World is a unique and brilliantly illuminating look at soccer, the world’s most popular sport, as a lens through which to view the pressing issues of our age, from the clash of civilizations to the global economy. From Brazil to Bosnia, and Italy to Iran, this is an eye-opening chronicle of how a beautiful sport and its fanatical followers can highlight the fault lines of a society, whether it’s terrorism, poverty, anti-Semitism, or radical Islam—issues that now have an impact on all of us. Filled with blazing intelligence, colorful characters, wry humor, and an equal passion for soccer and humanity, How Soccer Explains the World is an utterly original book that makes sense of our troubled times.

How Soccer Explains the World

Author: Franklin Foer
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0060731427
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
"Soccer is a perfect window into the crosscurrents of today's world ... Franklin Foer takes us on a tour through the world of soccer, shattering the myths of our new global age along the way"--Jacket.

How Soccer Explains the World

Author: Franklin Foer
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 9780066212340
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

How Football Explains America

Author: Sal Paolantonio
Publisher: Triumph Books
ISBN: 1633192911
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 187

Book Description
ESPN's Sal Paolantonio explores just how crucial football is to understanding the American psyche Using some of the most prominent voices in pro sports and cultural and media criticism, "How Football Explains America" is a fascinating, first-of-its-kind journey through the making of America's most complex, intriguing, and popular game. It tackles varying American themes--from Manifest Destiny to "fourth and one"--as it answers the age-old question Why does America love football so much? An unabashedly celebratory explanation of America's love affair with the game and the men who make it possible, this work sheds light on how the pioneers and cowboys helped create a game that resembled their march across the continent. It explores why rugby and soccer don't excite the American male like football does and how the game's rules are continually changing to enhance the dramatic action and create a better narrative. It also investigates the eternal appeal of the heroic quarterback position, the sport's rich military lineage, and how the burgeoning medium of television identified and exploited the NFL's great characters. It is a must read for anyone interested in more fully understanding not only the game but also the nation in which it thrives. Updated throughout and with a new introduction, this edition brings "How Football Explains America" to paperback for the first time.

Where Football Saves the World

Author: Alex Bellos
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781406379211
Category : Soccer
Languages : en
Pages : 207

Book Description
This book is packed with awesome true stories, real science and fascinating facts and will make you laugh loads - and it's all about football. What is a vomitory? When do footballers wee? Where do goalkeepers let in chickens? When did women start playing football? You'll find the answers to these questions and more in chapters on subjects such as biology, maths and history. Illustrated throughout with hilarious cartoons and filled with laugh-out-loud gags this is the perfect book for any boy or girl who loves football.

Soccer Empire

Author: Laurent Dubois
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520945743
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350

Book Description
When France both hosted and won the World Cup in 1998, the face of its star player, Zinedine Zidane, the son of Algerian immigrants, was projected onto the Arc de Triomphe. During the 2006 World Cup finals, Zidane stunned the country by ending his spectacular career with an assault on an Italian player. In Soccer Empire, Laurent Dubois illuminates the connections between empire and sport by tracing the story of World Cup soccer, from the Cup’s French origins in the 1930s to Africa and the Caribbean and back again. As he vividly recounts the lives of two of soccer’s most electrifying players, Zidane and his outspoken teammate, Lilian Thuram, Dubois deepens our understanding of the legacies of empire that persist in Europe and brilliantly captures the power of soccer to change the nation and the world.

Globalization in Foer's "How Soccer Explains the World"

Author: Jannis Rudzki-Weise
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 364077664X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 33

Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 1,3, University of Maryland University College in Heidelberg, course: Non-Fiction, language: English, abstract: Most Americans would agree that watching football on the weekends and rooting for their favorite team is an integral part of Americanism. Therefore, it is not surprising that popular sports writing in the United States usually covers American football or baseball as stated in Don DeLillo's famous prologue "The Triumph of Death" to his novel Underworld. Franklin Foer breaks this tradition by introducing soccer to an American audience. Foer's book has been quite successful, as ESPN ranks it among the top four books written on the culture of soccer (Caple 1). Foer does not only discuss sports, but he also journeys from stadium to stadium around the globe to provide new insight on today's world events. He uses the globalized medium of soccer to explain political, economic and social occurrences. In this essay, I will look at chapters seven and nine in which Foer's argumentation is political. Therefore, this can be considered both sports, as well as political writing. How Soccer Explains the World is organized into ten chapters, which can be read as three different parts with regard to content. "The first third of the book explores globalization's failure to erode the game's great rivalries and the hatreds they can produce" (Young 1). Foer then elaborates on the role of soccer in politics and economics when he explains the rise of the oligarchs and the corruption that was included in this process. In the last part of the book, the role soccer plays in preserving nationalism and for returning to the idea of tribalism is looked at in-depth.

Football School

Author: Alex Bellos
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781406373400
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Synopsis coming soon.......

Soccer in Mind

Author: Andrew M. Guest
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 1978817339
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 158

Book Description
From the FIFA World Cup to pick-up games at your local park, soccer is the closest thing in our world to a universal entertainment. Many writers use this global popularity to describe the game’s winners and losers, but what happens when we use social science to explore how soccer intersects with culture, society, and the self? This book provides a thinking fan’s guide to the world’s most popular game, proposing a way of engaging soccer that sparks intellectual curiosity and employs critical consciousness. Using stories and data, along with ideas from sociology, psychology, and across the social sciences, it provides readers with new ways of understanding fanaticism, peak performance, talent development, and more. Drawing on concepts ranging from cognitive bias to globalization, it illuminates meanings of the game for players and fans while investigating impacts on our lives and communities. While it considers soccer cultures across the globe, the book also analyzes what makes U.S. soccer culture special, including its embrace of the women’s game. As a scholar, former minor league player and coach, and fan, Andrew Guest offers a distinctive perspective on soccer in society. Whatever name you call it, and whatever your interest in it, Soccer in Mind will enrich your own view of the one truly global game.

Soccer in a Football World

Author: David Wangerin
Publisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 1592138853
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 359

Book Description
David Beckham’s arrival in Los Angeles represents the latest attempt to jump-start soccer in the United States where, David Wangerin says, it “remains a minority sport.” With the rest of the globe so resolutely attached to the game, why is soccer still mostly dismissed by Americans? Calling himself “a soccer fan born in the wrong country at nearly the wrong time,” Wangerin writes with wit and passion about the sport’s struggle for acceptance in Soccer in a Football World. A Wisconsin native, he traces the fragile history of the game from its early capitulation to gridiron on college campuses to the United States’ impressive performance at the 2002 World Cup. Placing soccer in the context of American sport in general, he chronicles its enduring struggle alongside the country’s more familiar pursuits and recounts the shifting attitudes toward the “foreign” game. His story is one that will enrich the perspective of anyone whose heart beats for the sport, and is curious as to where the game has been in America—and where it might be headed.