American Sports

From the Age of Folk Games to the Age of the Internet
9. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-032-36630-2
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 448 Seiten, Format (B × H): 183 mm x 260 mm, Gewicht: 1032 g

American Sports, now in its ninth edition, is a comprehensive, analytical introduction to the history of American sports from the precolonial era to the present.

Concise, thought-provoking chapters outline the complex relationships between sports and class, gender, race, religion, sexuality, and region in the United States, offering a definitive examination of how athletics have both shaped and reflected American culture across generations. Building on the expanded attention paid to women, African Americans, Native Americans, and Latinos in the previous volume, this new edition brings the narrative to the present, covering subjects such as the rising interest in soccer, the legalization of sports gambling, and the transformation of college sports through the advent of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL).

Students will develop critical thinking skills by connecting sporting events with broader historical contexts. Engaging sidebars on topics that include the Black Sox scandal, the worldwide influence of Jack Johnson, the significance of softball in lesbian communities, and the reasons for recent changes in baseball rules will spark meaningful classroom discussions. Ten new primary source activities invite deeper student participation.

This insightful introduction continues to be a vital tool for the study of both sports history and American history.

Zielgruppe

Undergraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Grundy, Pamela

Rader, Benjamin

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Lists of figures

Preface

Chapter 1. Sports in Early America

Chapter 2. The Setting for Nineteenth-Century Sports

Chapter 3. The Sporting Fraternity and Its Spectacles

Chapter 4. The Rise of America's National Game

Chapter 5. Elite Sports

Chapter 6. The Rise of Intercollegiate Sports

Chapter 7. Broader Horizons

Chapter 8. Sports, Culture and Nation: 1900-1945

Chapter 9. The Rise of Organized Youth Sports

Chapter 10. The Age of Sports Heroes

Chapter 11. Baseball's Golden Age

Chapter 12. The Intercollegiate Football Spectacle

Chapter 13. The Rise and Decline of Organized Women's Sports

Chapter 14. Globalizing Sports, Redefining Race

Chapter 15. The Setting of Organized Sports Since World War II

Chapter 16. Professional Team Sports in the Age of Television

Chapter 17. College Sports in the Age of Television

Chapter 18. Racial Revolution

Chapter 19. Women's Liberation

Chapter 20. All Sports All the Time

Chapter 21. Sports in the Twenty-First Century

Chapter 22. Sports and American Identity

Chapter 23. Transformations

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Pamela Grundy is an independent historian who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. She is the author of Learning to Win: Sports, Education and Social Change in Twentieth-Century North Carolina and, with Susan Shackelford, of Shattering the Glass: The Remarkable History of Women’s Basketball. She is also the editor, with Brad Austin, of Teaching US History Through Sports. Her work has received awards from, among others, the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, and the North American Society for Sport History.

Benjamin Rader is James L. Sellers Professor of History, Emeritus, University of Nebraska – Lincoln. He is the author of Down on Mahans Creek: A History of an Ozarks Neighborhood (2017), When Grandpa Delivered Babies and Other Ozarks Vignettes (2024), and Baseball: A History of America’s Game (5th edition, 2025).