About the Book
The world’s most popular sport, soccer is a global and cultural phenomenon. The television audience for the 2010 World Cup included nearly half of the world’s population, with viewers in nearly every country. As a reflection of soccer’s significance, the sport impacts countless aspects of the world’s culture, from politics and religion to business and the arts.
In The World through Soccer: The Cultural Impact of a Global Sport, Tamir Bar-On utilizes soccer to provide insights into worldwide politics, religion, ethics, marketing, business, leadership, philosophy, and the arts. Bar-On examines the ways in which soccer influences and reflects these aspects of society, and vice versa. Each chapter features representative players, providing specific examples of how soccer comments on and informs our lives. These players—selected from a wide array of eras, countries, and backgrounds—include Diego Maradona, Pelé, Hugo Sánchez, Cha Bum-Kun, Roger Milla, José Luis Chilavert, Zinedine Zidane, Paolo Maldini, Cristiano Ronaldo, Xavi, Neymar, Clint Dempsey, Mia Hamm, and many others.
Employing a unique lens to view a variety of topics, The World through Soccer reveals the sport’s profound cultural impact. Combining philosophical, popular, and academic insights about our world, this book is aimed at both soccer fans and academics, offering readers a new perspective into a sport that affects millions.
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Introduction
Chapter 1: Saving the nation – Soccer and national identity
Chapter 2: “Believe, obey, and fight”– Soccer and dictators
Chapter 3: Winning hearts and minds – Soccer, ideological hegemony, and “class warfare”
Chapter 4: “One ball can change the world” - Soccer and social change
Chapter 5: Gods and their shrines - Soccer as a pagan religion
Chapter 6: Playing fair - Soccer and ethics
Chapter 7: The business of business – Soccer, business, and marketing
Chapter 8: Leading by example - Soccer as a leadership opportunity
Chapter 9: Dreaming of Wembley or Anfield – Soccer, dreams, and childhood
Chapter 10: Immortal heroes? – Soccer and the meaning of life
Chapter 11: Soccer and fine arts – The pitch as canvas and player as artist
Conclusion
Appendix
Bibliography
About the Author
About the Author :
Tamir Bar-On is professor in the Department of International Relations and Humanities at the Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Querétaro, in Mexico. He is the author of Where Have All the Fascists Gone? (2007) and Rethinking the French New Right: Alternatives to modernity (2013).
Review :
The way in which the actor develops each of the eleven lessons is completely fascinating, since he manages to create a perfect relation between the topic, the chosen football player and the arguments provided. For all football lovers, The World Through Soccer offers a bunch of stories that intertwine with this sport, be it directly (players, clubs and national teams) or indirectly (political, social, economic, cultural, national and international contexts). For those who don’t love this sport, this book represents an interesting opportunity for seeing the world through a different lens. This is how, in every different chapter, we fill ourselves with new knowledge. Even if books linking football and politics had been written before, none of them offer as many approaches or analysis as Bar-on’s last work does. The World Through Soccer has the potential for becoming an obliged reference in football bibliography. An exquisite, entertaining and fantastic book!
Bar-On has produced a meticulously researched and cited book that offers a tangible starting point for instructors and scholars to incorporate elements of sport more broadly into teaching and writing cultural histories. The author structured the book in a way that each chapter was framed both as its own concept and in its individual context, but also positioned each as an integral part of a team. The book at once was clever, entertaining to read, and informative. Through his writing Bar-On had demonstrated both his passion and his knowledge about soccer as well as its influence upon the panoply of sociocultural forces.
