Kirschbaum, Erik. Soccer without Borders: Jurgen Klinsmann, Coaching the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team and the Quest for the World Cup. New York, NY: Picador Press, 2016. Pp. xxv+358. Author’s Note and Index. $25 hardcover. Reviewed by Cedrick G. Heraux Hired in July 2011 to coach the United States Men’s National Team (USMNT), Jurgen Klinsmann…
Bar-On, Tamir. The World Through Soccer: The Cultural Impact of a Global Sport. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. Pp. xxiii+307. Appendix, notes, bibliography, and index. $92.00 hardback, $89.99 electronic book. Reviewed by Zachary R. Bigalke Anyone who has watched soccer in recent years has seen a dizzying array of different formations and tactics being…
Guroff, Margaret. The Mechanical Horse: How the Bicycle Reshaped American Life. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016. Pp. 295. Abbreviations, bibliography, notes, index, 10 b&w photos, and 5 b&w illustrations. $24.95 hardcover. Reviewed by Lindsay Parks Pieper I recently visited Washington, D.C., to conduct research in the Library of Congress. The proximity of the library…
Rowley, Christopher. The Shared Origins of Football, Rugby, and Soccer. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. Pp. xi+248. Bibliography and index. $36.00 hardback, $35.99 electronic book. Reviewed by Zachary R. Bigalke My graduate advisor originally hails from Peru, and he is fond of telling a story from his earliest days as a graduate student in…
Wangerin, David. Distant Corners: American Soccer’s History of Missed Opportunities and Lost Causes. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2014. Pp. xiv+240. Index and 18 halftones. $50.50 clothback, $24.95 paperback and electronic book. Reviewed by Zachary R. Bigalke Over the summer, the United States hosted the Copa America Centenario, as the South American championships expanded to 16…
Frei, Terry. March 1939: Before the Madness. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2016. Pp. 237 + Notes, Bibliography, Index, Appendices. $16.95 paperback. Reviewed by Murry Nelson Here was a book that I had very mixed feelings about. First, the topic was timely, focusing on the first NCAA Tournament, then called the National Association of Basketball Coaches…
Eric Reed, Selling the Yellow Jersey: The Tour de France in the Global Era. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2015. Pp. 251. Notes, index, 19 halftones, 1 map, and 3 tables. $45.00 hardback. Reviewed by Cian Manning Eric Reed, an associate professor of history at Western Kentucky University, analyses how the French related to…
Guttmann, Allen. Women’s Sports: A History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. Pp. Ix+339. Notes, bibliographic notes, index, and black and white photographs. Reviewed by Russ Crawford A recent post by Wendy Parker on the Sports Biblio blog argued that Allen Guttmann’s 1991 Women’s Sports: A History (1991) was the best book that she had…
On Tuesday, the US women’s gymnastics squad captured the Olympic team title. The “Final Five” outscored second place Russia by an impressive 8.209 points. This margin was historic and astonishing. It was the greatest difference between a first and second place team in fifty six years. On air, NBC commentator Tim Daggett likened the spread…
This post is a part of the series, “Sport History Rewind.” In this series, contributors revisit and reevaluate important texts to determine the degree to which their analyses, arguments, research, and influence resonate in the field today. Of particular concern is how well the works fit into historiographical debates and compare with more recent sport-related…
Sport in American History 