A01=Andrei S. Markovits
A01=Steven L. Hellerman
Aftermath of World War I
Agence France-Presse
American exceptionalism
Author_Andrei S. Markovits
Author_Steven L. Hellerman
Barriers to entry
Bill Willis
Brian's Song
Buffalo Bills
Bull Durham
Canadian football
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Chicago Bears
College basketball
College football
College soccer
Columnist
Costa Rica
Credential
Crime Story (TV series)
Criticism
Dan Marino
Deep pocket
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ESPN
Exceptionalism
Field goal
Field of Dreams
Frank Gifford
George Blanda
Glenn Scobey Warner
Gym
Head coach
Howie Carr
Industrial society
Jack Kemp
Jim Brown
Joe Montana
John Brodie
Johnny Unitas
Lamar Hunt
Marion Motley
National Collegiate Athletic Association
National Football League regular season
National Invitation Tournament
New York Giants
Newspaper
North Dallas Forty
Oakland Raiders
Paul Robeson
Players' Union
Political sociology
Polynesia
Popular culture
Press box
Professional football (gridiron)
Prohibition in the United States
Prussia
Racial integration
Soccer mom
Steve Young
Sui generis
Superiority (short story)
Tailgate party
The Boston Globe
The Masses
This Week in Baseball
Training camp (National Football League)
Union League
Universities
USA Today
Woody Strode
World War I
World War II
Product details
- ISBN 9780691074474
- Weight: 539g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 22 Apr 2001
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Soccer is the world's favorite pastime, a passion for billions around the globe. In the United States, however, the sport is a distant also-ran behind football, baseball, basketball, and hockey. Why is America an exception? And why, despite America's leading role in popular culture, does most of the world ignore American sports in return? Offside is the first book to explain these peculiarities, taking us on a thoughtful and engaging tour of America's sports culture and connecting it with other fundamental American exceptionalisms. In so doing, it offers a comparative analysis of sports cultures in the industrial societies of North America and Europe. The authors argue that when sports culture developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, nativism and nationalism were shaping a distinctly American self-image that clashed with the non-American sport of soccer. Baseball and football crowded out the game. Then poor leadership, among other factors, prevented soccer from competing with basketball and hockey as they grew. By the 1920s, the United States was contentedly isolated from what was fast becoming an international obsession.
The book compares soccer's American history to that of the major sports that did catch on. It covers recent developments, including the hoopla surrounding the 1994 soccer World Cup in America, the creation of yet another professional soccer league, and American women's global preeminence in the sport. It concludes by considering the impact of soccer's growing popularity as a recreation, and what the future of sports culture in the country might say about U.S. exceptionalism in general.
Andrei S. Markovits is Professor of Politics in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures and Adjunct Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan. He is the author of numerous books, including The German Left: Red, Green and Beyond and The German Predicament: Memory and Power in the New Europe. Steven L. Hellerman is a sports journalist and a doctoral candidate at Claremont University's School of Politics and Economics.
