Brief History of American Sports

Elliott J. Gorn is Joseph A. Gagliano Professor of History at Loyola University Chicago. He is the author of The Manly Art: Bare-Knuckle Prize Fighting in America, Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America, and other books. Warren Goldstein chairs the Department of History at the University of Hartford. He is the author of the award-winning Playing for Keeps: A History of Early Baseball, William Sloane Coffin, Jr.: A Holy Impatience, and other books.

"If history were baseball, Gorn and Goldstein would get credit for a triple play: they have skillfully and imaginatively integrated sports into the framework of American culture and society, produced a pioneering work which should have enduring influence, and given us a scholarly history which is delightful to read. It's a terrific book in every way."--Lawrence W. Levine, University of California at Berkeley"With A Brief History of American Sports, Elliott J. Gorn and Warren Goldstein remind us that the very serious world of play provides a precise mirror of American life and aspiration, a deep, at times painful, but always abiding portrait of who we are."--Ken Burns, documentary film director, and coauthor of Baseball: An Illustrated History "The additional chapter in this revised edition examines with intelligent conciseness all the major issues of the moment--steroids, gender and sexual orientation, sports and "the big money," race and racialization in sports, and the ever-intensifying globalization of sports. A Brief History of American Sports is still a timely, succinct, yet comprehensive work."--Gerald Early, Merle King Professor of Modern Letters, Washington University, and author of A Level Playing Field: African Americans and the Republic of Sports