American Sports
An Anthropological Approach

This collection illustrates the expansiveness of an interdisciplinary approach to the study of sport. While rooted in anthropology, these essays consider American sports in their social, economic, cultural and political aspects, charting their evolution. The book draws from history, sociology, and political science; as well as considering the relationship between the developed and developing world; and culture and masculinity. The first part of the book considers the local and global interplay of professional baseball, covering: Major League Baseball's impact on the Dominican Republic nationalism and baseball on the Mexican/US border the globalizing forces of baseball as an industry. The second part of the book is concerned with the cultural examination of the responsiveness of masculinity to social and cultural forces, examining: the exaggerated world of bodybuilders in Southern California the cross-cultural comparisons of male behaviour on a bi-national baseball team in Mexico the historical examination of Jews in American sport. This book was previously published as a special issue of Sport in Society

1. Towards a Transnational Sports Studies
2. Baseball as Underdevelopment: The Political-Economy of Sport in the Dominican Republic
3. Yo Soy Dominicano: Hegemony and Resistance through Baseball
4. Dominican Republic: Forging an International Industry
5. Borderline Treason: Nationalisms and Baseball on the Texas -- Mexican Border
6. When Will There be a Real World Series?
7. Tender Machos: Masculine Contrasts in the Mexican Baseball League
8. The Hustler Complex
9. Comic Book Masculinity
10. Anti-Semitism and Anti-Somatism: Seeking the Elusive Sporting Jew