Reeths, Paul. The United States Football League, 1982-1986. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, Inc., Publishers, 2017. Pp. 428, photographs, bibliography, and index. $39.95. Reviewed by Jorge Iber At the start of The United States Football League, 1982-1986, author Paul Reeths harkens back to his youth in the early 1980s and recounts his excitement at the…
Tamir Bar-On. Beyond Soccer: International Relations and Politics as Seen through the Beautiful Game. Lanham and New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2017. 340 pages (including selected bibliography, index, and author information) US$35.00 (paperback). Reviewed by Patrick Salkeld As sport historians know, politics and sports coexist in the same spheres. Athletes, such as Colin Kaepernick or…
Marmins, David J. and Steven K. Feit. Appalachian State Silences the Big House: Behind the Greatest Upset in College Football History. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2017. Pp. x + 263. 37 photos & illustrations, chapter notes, bibliography and index. $25.00 softcover. Reviewed by Zachary R. Bigalke One of the reasons why college football remains so…
Adam J. Criblez, Tall Tales and Short Shorts: Dr. J, Pistol Pete, and the Birth of the Modern NBA. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. Pp. xii + 299. Photos, notes, select bibliography, and index. $38 hardback. Reviewed by Christopher R. Davis In his monograph, Tall Tales and Short Shorts: Dr. J, Pistol Pete, and…
Miracle, Jared. Now with Kung Fu Grip!: How Bodybuilders, Soldiers and a Hairdresser Reinvented Martial Arts for America: Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2016. 188 pp. $29.95 Paperback. Reviewed by Richard Ravalli As its attention-grabbing title implies, Jared Miracle’s Now with Kung Fu Grip!: How Bodybuilders, Soldiers and a Hairdresser Reinvented Martial Arts…
Welter, Jen. Play Big: Lessons in Being Limitless from the First Woman to Coach in the NFL. New York: Seal Press, 2017. vii+266. Acknowledgements. Reviewed by Russ Crawford Jen Welter has been the first woman to do many things. She was a member of the first women’s football team to win an International Federation of…
Snell, David Kingsley. The Baron and the Bear: Rupp’s Runts, Haskins’s Miners, and the Season That Changed Basketball Forever. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2016. Pp. xii + 312. 20 unnumbered pages of plates and index. $29.95 hardcover, $14.99 e-book. Reviewed by Tony Calandrillo In The Baron and the Bear: Rupp’s Runts, Haskins’s Miners,…
Fields, Sarah K. Game Faces: Sport Celebrity and the Laws of Reputation. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2016. Pp. xxii+187. Notes, index. $95.00 cloth, $24.95 paper, $22.46 ebook. Reviewed by Cat Ariail In the fall of 2012, a lawyer representing Hulk Hogan (Terry Bollea) filed a federal invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against Gawker Media for publishing…
Gems, G.R., Borish, L.J., and Pfister, G. Sports in American History: From Colonization to Globalization, Second Edition. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2017. 385 pages (including images, index, and author information) US$89.00 (cloth cover). Reviewed by Matt Hodler Like many of us, I have both opted to use textbooks and not to use them when designing…
Bowman, Paul. Mythologies of Martial Arts. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. Pp. 210. $39.95 paperback. Reviewed by Wesley R. Bishop Was the recent Marvel and Netflix show Iron Fist racist? How do we define cultural appropriation and orientalism in cultural studies, especially when cultural productions deal with popular representations of other cultures? What does…
Sport in American History 