How Football Explains America by Sal Paolantonio

Product Details

Synopsis

Using some of the most prominent voices in pro sports and cultural and media criticism, How Football Explains America is a fascinating, first-of-its-kind journey through the making of America’s most complex, intriguing, and popular game.

John Maxymuk - Library Journal

A more accurate, if less provocative, title for this fascinating pop culture treatise would be How Football Relates to American History and Culture. While no one thing does in fact really explain America, football does cut a very wide swath in its connection to the American experience. Relying on interviews and eclectic research sources, ESPN reporter Paolantonio links key points about the game to events, characters, cultural details, and American symbols. For example, he says that the establishment in football of down and distance, possession and territory, is tied to the American policy of Manifest Destiny. Huddles are connected to the importance of free assembly in a democracy as noted by Alexis de Toqueville. Similarly, the author demonstrates common American concepts like the frontier, race, ethnicity, immigration, leadership, social change, commercialism, celebrity worship, corruption, and teamwork in the context of football. The book is very engagingly written, with each chapter framed by an incident from the 2007 NFL season to bring to life the main argument in the body of that chapter. Paolantonio is a popular and well-known figure, and this insightful examination of why we love football will be read by a broad range of patrons.