The Age of Football: Soccer and the 21st Century
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5.0 • 4 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A monumental exploration of soccer and society in our time—by its preeminent historian.
The Age of Football proves that whether you call it football or soccer, you can’t make sense of the modern world without understanding its most popular sport. With breathtaking scope and an unparalleled knowledge of the game, David Goldblatt—author of the best-selling The Ball Is Round—charts soccer’s global cultural ascent, economic transformation, and deep politicization.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
You don’t need to understand the offside rule to be gripped by The Age of Football, David Goldblatt’s near-encyclopedic study of 21st-century soccer. Widely regarded as the sport’s leading historian, Goldblatt is interested in what happens off the soccer pitch and how the beautiful game’s worldwide dominance has led to scores of unintended ugly consequences, including the FIFA corruption scandal, the obliteration of Africa’s domestic leagues, and Vladimir Putin’s meddling in the 2018 World Cup. Goldblatt recounts these real-life stories in fascinating detail, painting a bleak picture of the sport. But this eye-opening book also serves up glimmers of hope—for example, we loved reading about how soccer transformed Uganda’s once-torturous prison system. Goldblatt’s sharp wit and obvious love for his subject matter make this hefty history a page-turning read.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sportswriter Goldblatt (The Ball Is Round) presents a titanic, often dense volume on "the beautiful game" and its cultural transcendency and relevance in the 21st century. The sport's global popularity, Goldblatt argues, has resulted in soccer's increased attention from politicians, not for "merely symbolic" reasons but also as "an object of state policy and intervention." Goldblatt begins in Africa, where he explores the roots of colonialism and the ways that soccer proliferated across the continent, focusing on the cultural significance of South Africa hosting the 2010 World Cup. He then observes soccer's rise to prominence in the Middle East and highlights the controversy surrounding the bribery scandal and backroom negotiations behind the decision for Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup, while also noting the subsequent charges of human rights violations regarding the migrant labor force building the stadiums. He closes with chapters on FIFA, soccer's international governing body, and corruption, particularly about former FIFA president Sepp Blatter's outsize power and his 2015 resignation amid a sprawling corruption scandal, and on the growing importance of soccer in Putin's Russia, exemplified by the leader's growing desire to spread the country's "sphere of influence" in global sports outside of the Olympic sports. Goldblatt's work is invaluable for a wide swath of readers, from soccer fans to those with interests in politics, cultural studies, and social justice.
