Games and Empires: Modern Sports and Cultural Imperialism

Modern sports, opines Gutman (Women's Sports), are to a large degree a British invention. He sees modern sports as having seven characteristics: secularism, equality, bureaucratization, specialization, rationalization, quantification and obsession with records. Tracing the spread of cricket to such diverse lands as India and Jamaica, of soccer to Latin America and Africa, of rounders (U.S. baseball) to Japan and the Caribbean, the professor of American Studies at Amherst sees the diffusion of sports as resulting not from political or economic power but from cultural hegemony. The author distinguishes ``hegemony'' from ``imperialism'' by stressing that the former ``is something more complex than the domination by the totally powerful of the entirely powerless.'' He demonstrates the continuing diffusion by citing the National Football League's attempts to enter the European market. Carefully researched and informative, the book will appeal mainly to academics willing to overlook the turgid style. Photos not seen by PW. (Oct.)