A Brief History of American Sports

by Gorn, Elliott J.

• ISBN13: 9780252071843
• ISBN10: 0252071840
• Edition: Illus.
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-01-01
• Publisher: Univ of Illinois Pr

Summary

Gorn and Goldstein show us where our games and pastimes came from, how they developed, and what they have meant to Americans. The great heroes of baseball and football are here, as well as the dramatic moments of boxing and basketball. Beyond this, the authors show us how sports fit into the larger contours of our past. A Brief History of American Sports reveals that from colonial times to the present, sports have been central to American culture, and a profound expression of who we are.

Author Biography

Warren Goldstein chairs the Department of History at the University of Hartford.

Table of Contents

Preface
America Becomes a Sporting Nation
Colonists at Play
"Virgin Land"	p. 3
English Sports	p. 6
The Virginia Ethic	p. 17
The New England Way	p. 30
The Middle Colonies	p. 37
Sports and the New Nation	p. 42
"Saints and Their Bodies": Sport Through 1860
The Adams Family	p. 47
Victorian Culture and the Attack on Traditional Sports	p. 49
The Beginnings of Modern American Sports	p. 64
Muscular Christians and Brawny Brahmins	p. 81
"Vigorous, Manly, Out-of-Door Sports": The Gilded Age
"... Healthful and Invigorating Sports ..."	p. 98
Sport and Society	p. 105
The Rise of Mass Sports: Boxing and Baseball	p. 114
Elite Sports	p. 129
"The Strenuous Life"	p. 138
Sport and its Discontents: The Twentieth Century
Sports with a Mission: Football and Basketball
Walter Camp and the Bureaucratization of the Strenuous Life	p. 153
Football, Alumni, and the Control of the University	p. 164
Progressives, Play, and Basketball	p. 169
World War I: The Great Unifier	p. 177
Play, Business, and Space: Sports and the Public Sphere
Home Teams	p. 183
Sports Heroes and Mass Culture	p. 188
Gender and Sport	p. 197
Racial Integration	p. 209
Money, Television, Drugs, and the Win: Dilemmas of Modern Sports
Amateur Ideals and Sporting Reality	p. 222
Twentieth-Century Amateurism	p. 228
The Impact of Television	p. 236
The Historical Roots of the Drug Problem in Sports	p. 241
Epilogue	p. 251
Bibliographic Essay	p. 257
Index	p. 277
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.