World through Soccer - by Tamir Bar-On (Hardcover)

About the Book

This book uses soccer to provide insights into worldwide politics, religion, business, ethics, leadership, childhood, philosophy, and art. It examines the way soccer influences and reflects these aspects of society, and vice versa. Each chapter includes a selection of players ...

Book Synopsis

This book uses soccer to provide insights into worldwide politics, religion, business, ethics, leadership, childhood, philosophy, and art. It examines the way soccer influences and reflects these aspects of society, and vice versa. Each chapter includes a selection of players that represent the current lesson, providing the reader with specific examples of how soccer replicates and informs our lives.

Review Quotes

Bar-On has produced a meticulously researched and cited book that offers a tangible starting point for instructors and scholars to incorporate elements of sport more broadly into teaching and writing cultural histories. The author structured the book in a way that each chapter was framed both as its own concept and in its individual context, but also positioned each as an integral part of a team. The book at once was clever, entertaining to read, and informative. Through his writing Bar-On had demonstrated both his passion and his knowledge about soccer as well as its influence upon the panoply of sociocultural forces.

The way in which the actor develops each of the eleven lessons is completely fascinating, since he manages to create a perfect relation between the topic, the chosen football player and the arguments provided. For all football lovers, The World Through Soccer offers a bunch of stories that intertwine with this sport, be it directly (players, clubs and national teams) or indirectly (political, social, economic, cultural, national and international contexts). For those who don't love this sport, this book represents an interesting opportunity for seeing the world through a different lens. This is how, in every different chapter, we fill ourselves with new knowledge. Even if books linking football and politics had been written before, none of them offer as many approaches or analysis as Bar-on's last work does. The World Through Soccer has the potential for becoming an obliged reference in football bibliography. An exquisite, entertaining and fantastic book!

About the Author

Tamir Bar-On is professor in the Department of International Relations and Humanities at the Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Querétaro, in Mexico. He is the author of Where Have All the Fascists Gone? (2007) and Rethinking the French New Right: Alternatives to modernity (2013).