Hoops
A Cultural History of Basketball in America
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- 32,99 €
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- 32,99 €
Publisher Description
From its early days as a sport to build “muscular Christianity” among young men flooding nineteenth-century cities to its position today as a global symbol of American culture, basketball has been a force in American society. It grew through high school gymnasiums, college pep rallies, and the fits and starts of professionalization. It was a playground game, an urban game, tied to all of the caricatures that were associated with urban culture. It struggled with integration and representations of race. Today, basketball’s influence seeps into film, music, dance, and fashion. Hoops tells the story of the reciprocal relationship between the sport and the society that received it. While many books have celebrated specific aspects of the game, Thomas Aiello presents the only contemporary cultural history of the sport from the street to the highest levels of professional mens and womens competition. He argues that the game has existed in a reciprocal relationship with the broader culture, both embodying conflicts over race, class, and gender and serving a s public theater for them. Aiello places cultural icons like Bill Russell, Michael Jordan, and Kobe Bryant in the context of their times and explores how the sport negotiated controversies and scandals. Hoops belongs on the bookshelf of every reader interested in the history of basketball, sports, race, urban life, and pop culture in America.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
History professor Aiello (Dixieball) doesn't quite sink his shot in what he dubs the first "full cultural history" of basketball. Arguing that the court "embod conflicts over class, race, and gender, and serv as a public theater for them," he offers an impressive overview of the game—from its invention in the late 19th century through the rise of pro teams, and the impacts of Title IX and ESPN. The sections on basketball's early days—including the struggles by Black and female athletes to break into the sport—are especially valuable. Aiello charts the evolution of team rosters in the 1950s as players of color began to dominate the sport, and he takes readers to the present day, touching upon stars like LeBron James who've been criticized for voicing opinions on racial issues. However, such timely topics as the rise of non-American players—whether native Africans, including two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, or such Europeans as Luka Doncic—are conspicuously not taken into account. Instead, space is devoted to discussing general manager Sam Hinkie's plans to tank the 76ers in order to achieve eventual success, as well as to a convoluted linking of the rise of department stores in the late 19th century to sports journalism—both of which distract more than add to Aiello's ambitious undertaking. This is a good starting point for a deeper dive, rather than a definitive work.
