More Than Just a Game
Sports in American Life Since 1945
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Columbia University Press
Published:9th May '06
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This book examines major sports, both professional and intercollegiate, from baseball, football, and basketball to golf, tennis, stock car racing, and extreme sports, to explain how sports became a multibillion-dollar industry as well as a major influence on and reflection of American society. Jay also shows how sports have helped shape racial, gender, national, and class identities.
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.
Jay's exciting-sometimes breathless-commentary on the evolution of sports in late 20th-century America touches all the bases, scoring point after point with her lucid insights and evocative prose. Publishers Weekly [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 Jay's historical and sociological treatment offers many important details on women in sports... This would be a good textbook for an undergraduate sport history class. Recommended for academic libraries. Library Journal More Than Just a Game will be an important source for historians and sociologists in years ahead... -- Lawrence S. Connor Indianapolis Star Her judgments are sharp, her insights astute, and her breadth remarkable...Highly recommended. Choice 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 A valuable and necessary read... Riveting. -- Terry Martin Aethlon
- Winner of Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2005
ISBN: 9780231125352
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
304 pages