Sports Culture

In 1963, the West Indian Marxist C.L.R. James posed the deceptively benign question: "What do they know of cricket, who only cricket know?" A challenge to the public to reconsider cricket and its meaning by placing the game in its true social, political, and economic context. Different Class does not simply challenge the widely accepted orthodoxy of English cricket, it demonstrates how the values and belief systems at its heart were intentionally developed in order to divide the English along class lines at every level of the game.

Today, we primarily use these tiny computers called cellphones that fit in our pockets to help us navigate. It's never been easier to know exactly where you are and find a route to where you want to go. Still, these fancy computers can have their fair share of problems. Batteries run out of charge, GPS lose signal outside of cities, and they can run out of data. This is where this fantastic yet simple tool comes in handy.

''Because it's there''. Today the question ''why do this?'' is included in nearly every mountaineering story or interview. Meanwhile, interest in climbing is steadily on the rise, from commercial mountaineering and climbing walls in university gyms and corporate workplaces to the flood of spectacular climbing imagery in advertising, cinema, and social media.

For many Americans who grew up in a small town, childhood and adolescence revolved around the skatepark. As time passes, however, these people drift away from skateboarding and the spaces where they learned to do it. Part memoir, part travelogue, part essay, Small Town Skateparks is the story of an adventure to discover the role skateparks play in such lives and the role they played in the author’s own. 

Schieber, Spieler und Rebellen: Der Bundesligaskandal erschüttert das Land, die Nationalelf um Beckenbauer und Netzer spielt Zauberfußball im Wembley-Stadion und wird Europameister, Willy Brandt übersteht das Misstrauensvotum, die RAF hält Deutschland in Atem, die Band Ton Steine Scherben liefert den Sound für Aufbruch und Protest. Stan Libuda und Rio Reiser sind die Träumer, die die Leser durch ein aufregendes Jahr begleiten und ein Schlaglicht werfen auf die Anatomie der bundesdeutschen Gesellschaft.

When modern baseball fans think of African-American players, they may think of Ken Griffey Jr. or Derek Jeter. But what about the Black stars who didn't play Major League Baseball? In the early 1900s, Black players were not allowed in the Major Leagues. The Negro Leagues provided an alternative for African-American players. Discover the Negro Leagues in this book packed full of facts and stories. Learn about the biggest games and wildest moments of the Negro Leagues era, as well as some of the greatest (and least well-known) players.

Every kindergarten soccer player gets a trophy. Many high schools name dozens of seniors as valedictorians - of the same class. Cars sport bumper stickers that read "USA - Number 1." Prizes proliferate in every corner of American society, and excellence is trumpeted with ratings that range from "Academy Award winner!" to "Best Neighborhood Pizza!" In Everyone’s a Winner, Joel Best - acclaimed author of Damned Lies and Statistics - shines a bright light on the increasing abundance of status in our society and considers what it all means.

A fascinating cultural history of fitness, from Greek antiquity to the era of the “big-box gym” and beyond, exploring the ways in which human exercise has changed over time - and what we can learn from our ancestors.

Pro basketball player Rasheed Wallace often exclaimed the pragmatic truth "Ball don't lie!" during a game. It is a protest against a referee's bad calls. But the slogan, which originated in pickup games, brings the reality of a racialized urban playground into mainstream American popular culture.

The New York Times and Washington Post bestselling author turns his expertise to a subject that has never been fully explored, delivering a highly entertaining game changer that uses brand-new research to show us why being a sports fan is good for us individually and is a force for positive change in society. Fans is a passionate reminder of how games, teams, and the communities dedicated to them are vital to our lives.

For the Birds offers listeners a glimpse behind the binoculars and reveals birders to be important allies in the larger environmental conservation movement. With a wealth of data from in-depth interviews and over three years of observing birders in the field, environmental sociologist Elizabeth Cherry argues that birders learn to watch wildlife in ways that make an invaluable contribution to contemporary conservation efforts. She investigates how birders develop a “naturalist gaze” that enables them to understand the shared ecosystem that intertwines humans and wild animals.

Bicycle/Race paints an unforgettable picture of Los Angeles—and the United States—from the perspective of two wheels. This is a book of borderlands and intersections, a cautionary tale about the dangers of putting infrastructure before culture, and a coming-of-age story about power and identity.

Just about everyone is familiar with the Nike Air Jordan shoe, but just when did the practice of attaching an athlete’s name to a shoe become common practice? This audiobook takes you from the beginning of the signature shoe industry, and through the 1980s when the popularity of signature shoes accelerated. At the start of the ‘90s, just about every footwear company was producing a signature shoe, and looking for the next charismatic spokesperson, when they saw the dollars Nike was making with the Jordans.