American Sport in International History: The United States and the World since 1865 (New Approaches to International History)

This book explores how American sports, especially basketball, baseball and American football, have projected the US into the world, and brought the world into America. Taking a chronological approach it traces the development of American sports from the turn of the 20th century, highlighting how international forces such as immigration, geopolitics and war have influenced the trajectory of sport in the US, and thus the American experience. DuBois also considers the globalization of American sport and how this soft power shaped international relations throughout the American century. Addressing key questions about the role of sport in the rise of the United States, it frames themes that have come to define sports history; gender, race, economics and politics. It argues that while sport has not necessarily been a catalyst for change, it has often mirrored social issues, and sometimes served as an important tool of progress. Synthesizing major works alongside primary sources, the chapters study boxing, hockey, track and field and soccer alongside the 'big three' (basketball, baseball and American football) through a number of case studies to offer a novel interpretation of American sport history. Spanning early Native American sport, the export of baseball in the American empire, the role of basketball in the Cold War, the influence of immigrants and women in sports, and modern day sport culture, American Sport in International History asks what the role of sport has been and will be in a shifting international environment. Cover Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments Introduction 1 The Huddled Masses Introduction Immigration and the Emergence of Modern Sport in America Basketball and Urban Space Jack Johnson and the Global Business of Boxing American Football, Collegiate Athletics, and the Amateur Sport Movement America and the Modern Olympic Movement Pierre de Coubertin and the 1896 Revival of the Olympic Games The 1900 Olympic Games in Paris The 1904 Games and the St. Louis World’s Fair Olympic Fatigue, European Rivalry, and the 1908 London Games Melting Pot Athletes and the 1912 Stockholm Games Baseball and American Empire Foreigners to Fans Cannons in the Outfield Baseball’s World Tours Conjuring the National Pastime Notes Athlete Spotlight #1: Jim Thorpe 2 In Service of the State Introduction The Growing Business of Baseball Babe Ruth and the New Sport Media The Negro Leagues and Baseball’s Continued Growth Abroad Professionalization in Other Corners of US Sport Professional Football, Hockey, and Basketball in Interwar America Re-Professionalizing Boxing in the Nativist 1920s and 1930s The Olympics and War Olympic Growth in the 1920s and 1930s Hitler, Jesse Owens, and the 1936 Berlin Olympics US Sport in the Second World War Notes Athlete Spotlight #2: Babe Didrikson Zaharias 3 The Dawn of the Activist Athlete Introduction Postwar Professional Sport in America The NFL Sets the Edge The Making of the NBA Jackie Robinson, the Black Press, and Baseball’s Integration after the Second World War Sport Diplomacy and the Cold War The Harlem Globetrotters and Cold War Civil Rights Wilma Rudolph, Femininity, and the Cold War Bill Russell and the Transnational Power of Sport Muhammad Ali v. United States Cold War Competitions and the Arrival of the Activist Athlete Sport across the Iron Curtain Drugs, Sex, and Gender American Credibility, Mal Whitfield, and the 1968 Olympics Notes Athlete Spotlight #3: Althea Gibson 4 New Frontiers in Player Empowerment Introduction Sport and the End of the Cold War Diplomacy and Sport in Cold War China US National Sport before and after the 1972 Munich Games Ice and Mortar Social Justice Takes Center Court Arthur Ashe, Apartheid, and the ATP Billie Jean King and Gender Boundaries in Sport Global Sport Capitalism MLB, Globalization, and the Making of the Free Agent The Doctor, Air Jordan, and the Global Rise of the NBA Notes Athlete Spotlight #4: Carl Lewis 5 Into the Twenty-First Century Introduction The Highs and Lows of Global Sport Stardom The Tiger Effect “I’m Sorry You Don’t Believe in Miracles” US Professional Sport after the American Age Wither Baseball? From Yao to the Eurostep Global Football or American Fútbol? US National Sport in the Twenty-First Century The USWNT The Devil and the Goat Notes Athlete Spotlight #5: Michelle Kwan Conclusion Selected Bibliography Index