How Football Explains America

February 1, 2009
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.John Maxymuk, Rutgers Univ. Lib., Camden, NJ

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2008
Paolantonio, a television football correspondent, opens with an intriguingquestion: Why does conventional wisdom say that it was television that made football so popular, when other countries that have television are notthe slightest bit interested in the game? What if the truth was exactly the oppositefootballhelped make television? The book relates the evolution of the sport to the evolution of the country: just as America declared its independence from England, so American footballers redesigned the game and made it independent from the British import, rugby. And just as immigrants to the U.S. helped build the country, so various ethnic groups helped build football. The parallels between football and combat are obvious, but Paolantonio doesnt hammer at them, preferring instead to talk about the way the sport captured the interest of its fans to a degree that few recreational pursuits ever equaled. The hyperbole of its title aside, this volume has surprisingly insightful things to say about football as a sociocultural phenomenon. Expect some interest beyond football fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)