New Books In Sports

William Muldoon was an infamous athlete whose prowess, savvy, and chicanery across his six-decade career led him to wealth, cultural importance, and political power. Muldoon, the child of poor Irish immigrants, began wrestling in the 1870s and quickly became one of the most famous athletes of the post–Civil War era. He started acting and modeling as his popularity grew, making him one of the first sports stars to achieve crossover success. After a triumphant stint rehabilitating fallen boxing heavyweight champion John L. Sullivan in 1889, he retired from the ring and began a new career as a fitness impresario, founding an elite gymnasium and remaking himself as a health authority in the press. He became trainer to the rich, famous, and politically powerful, which led to his appointment as chair of the New York State Athletic Commission in the 1920s. From this position, Muldoon exerted his influence over the rules of boxing and wrestling and weaponized his power to maintain segregation in sport. The Last Glad

Today we are joined by Aaron Miller, Lecturer in Kinesiology at California State University, East Bay and the author of Basketball in Japan: Shooting for the Stars (Routledge, 2025.) In our conversation, we discussed the beginnings of basketball in Japan, the ongoing legacy of Samurai culture in Japanese sport, and what Japanese basketball’s success might look like in the future. In Basketball in Japan, Miller uses anthropological and ethnographic research approaches to ask why basketball in Japan is so popular with young people but less so with adults. Through a long series of conversation and observations, he leads readers to better understand the ways that sports shed light on shifts in Japanese identity. He also raises questions about to what extent Japanese coaches and players think about basketball in a specifically Japanese way. Building on a decade of research into Japanese sport and a year of field work inside of several Japanese sporting organizations, Miller’s compelling and readable account of J

The game of basketball is perceived by most today as an “urban” game with a locale such as Rucker Park in Harlem as the game’s epicenter (as well as a pipeline to the NBA). While that is certainly a true statement, basketball is not limited to places such as New York City. In recent years scholars have written about the meaning of the game (and triumphs on the hardwood) to other groups, such as Asian Americans (Kathleen Yep and Joel Franks) and Mexican Americans (Ignacio Garcia). To this important literature one can now add an examination of the sport in the lives of Native Americans, through Wade Davies' Native Hoops: The Rise of American Indian Basketball, 1895-1970 (University Press of Kansas, 2020). The game, as Davies notes, was not just something imposed upon Natives in locales such as the Indian Industrial Training School in Kansas (and elsewhere). The game provided linkages to the Native past, and was embraced as a way to “prove their worth” within a hostile environment designed to strip students of a

Big-time college football promises prestige, drama, media attention, and money. Yet most athletes in this unpaid, amateur system encounter a different reality, facing dangerous injuries, few pro-career opportunities, a free but devalued college education, and future financial instability. In one of the first ethnographies about Black college football players, anthropologist Dr. Tracie Canada reveals the ways young athletes strategically resist the exploitative systems that structure their everyday lives.Tackling the Everyday shows how college football particularly harms the young Black men who are overrepresented on gridirons across the country. Although coaches and universities constantly invoke the misleading "football family" narrative, this book describes how a brotherhood among Black players operates alongside their caring mothers, who support them on and off the field. With a Black feminist approach—one that highlights often-overlooked voices—Dr. Canada exposes how race, gender, kinship, and care shape

Heroes aren’t just the ones who bring home medals. Hero Redefined: Profiles of Olympic Athletes Under the Radar (Clever Cleever, 2025) delves into the lesser-known stories of Olympic athletes—and a couple of special Olympic venues—that challenge the conventional narrative of glory and gold. In riveting personal profiles exploring herculean feats of strength, perseverance, and sportsmanship, award-winning sports journalist Doug Levy offers a new vision of heroism. There is more than one path to greatness, and the extraordinary acts of resilience and personal sacrifice by these athletes have left an indelible mark on the spirit of the Olympic games in quiet but fundamental ways through the ages. Each chapter reveals a different face of heroism—immense resilience, strength of character, unparalleled sportsmanship, an incredible zeal to compete, and a seemingly superhuman will to finish. Throughout, Levy celebrates the heroic human spirit and its relentless drive to carry the torch forward—both inside and outsid

The 1949-50 CCNY Beavers basketball team were one of the unlikeliest of champions in sports history. CCNY was a tuition-free in Harlem, New York, intended to give working class students the best education possible. The school was comprised of minorities, many of whom were the immigrants or children of immigrants. In 1949-50, the CCNY squad, led by legendary coach Nat Holman, shocked the basketball world by becoming the first and only school to win the N.I.T. and N.C.A.A. tournaments in the same scene. At a time when college basketball was much more popular in New York than the fledgling NBA, the CCNY boys became the talk of the town and heroes to millions. The following season, several members of the CCNY team, including the entire starting five, were arrested as part of a massive point shaving scandal that had engulfed the entire collegiate basketball scene in New York City. Overnight, the CCNY boys went from heroes to villains. Their dreams of playing in the NBA were dashed and gambling scandal became a sti

Today we are joined by César Brioso, author of the book Last Seasons in Havana: The Castro Revolution and the End of Professional Baseball In Cuba (University of Nebraska Press, 2019). Blending the love for baseball fans in Cuba had during the 1950s with the political upheaval that led to Fidel Castro’s rise to power in 1959, Brioso weaves a fascinating tale. Brioso focuses on the last two seasons of the Havana Sugar Kings of the International League (1958-1959) and the last three seasons of the Cuban League (1958-1961). In the 1950s, Havana was a city teeming with rabid baseball fans, swanky hotels, luxurious casinos, and warm, tropical weather. Influential baseball men in Cuba like Bobby Maduro believed Havana was on the short list to earn a major league franchise when baseball expanded. But what happened politically signaled the death knell for those dreams. Castro may have been a big sports fan, but political events in Cuba would take “a sinister turn” as he and the Communists in his regime tightened thei

In the fifty years since his tragic death in a car crash, Steve Prefontaine has towered over American distance running. One of the most recognizable and charismatic figures to ever run competitively in the United States, Prefontaine has endured as a source of inspiration and fascination—a talent who presaged the American running boom of the late 1970s and helped put Nike on the map as the brand’s first celebrity-athlete face. Now on the anniversary of his untimely death, author Brendan O’Meara, host of the Creative Nonfiction podcast, offers a fresh, definitive retelling of Prefontaine’s life, revisiting one of the most enigmatic figures in American sports with a twenty-first-century lens. Through over a hundred and fifty original interviews with family, friends, teammates, and competitors, this long-overdue reappraisal of Prefontaine—the first such exhaustive treatment in almost thirty years—provides never-before-told stories about the unique talent, innovative mental strength, and personal struggles that s

In 1998, Bill Clinton hosted a town hall on race and sports. 'If you've got a special gift,' the president said of athletes, 'you owe more back.' Gift and Grit shows how the sports industry has incubated racial ideas about advantage and social debt since the civil rights era by sorting athletes into two broad categories. The gifted athlete received something for nothing, we're told, and owes the team, the fan, the city, God, nation. The gritty athlete received nothing and owes no one. The distinction between gift and grit is racial, but also, Joseph Darda reveals, racializing: It has structured new racial categories and redrawn racial lines. Sports, built on an image of fairness, inform how we talk about advantage and deservedness in other domains, including immigration, crime, education, and labor. Gift and Grit tells the stories of Roger Bannister, Roberto Clemente, Martina Navratilova, Florence Griffith Joyner, and LeBron James – and the story their stories tell about the shifting meaning of race in Americ

In a unique and personal exploration of the game and fish laws in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi from the Progressive Era to the 1930s, Julia Brock offers an innovative history of hunting in the New South. The implementation of conservation laws made significant strides in protecting endangered wildlife species, but it also disrupted traditional hunting practices and livelihoods, particularly among African Americans and poor whites. Closed Seasons: The Transformation of Hunting in the Modern South (UNC Press, 2025) highlights how hunting and fishing regulations were relatively rare in the nineteenth century, but the emerging conservation movement and the rise of a regional "sportsman" identity at the turn of the twentieth century eventually led to the adoption of state-level laws. Once passed, however, these laws were plagued by obstacles, including insufficient funding and enforcement. Brock traces the dizzying array of factors—propaganda, racial tensions, organizational activism, and federal involvement

In The Warrior: Rafael Nadal and His Kingdom of Clay (Grand Central Publishing, 2025) Christopher Clarey illuminates the skill and determination it took to accomplish Rafael Nadal’s most mind-blowing achievement: 14 French Open titles. Nadal has won big on tennis's many surfaces en route to becoming one of the greatest players of all time: securing two Wimbledon titles on grass and four U.S. Open titles on cushioned acrylic hardcourts. But clay, the slowest and grittiest of the game’s playgrounds, is where it all comes together best for his tactical skills, whipping topspin forehand and gladiatorial mindset. Clay is to Rafael Nadal what water is to Michael Phelps, which helps explain one of the most impressive individual sports achievements of the 21st century. Clarey draws on interviews over many years with Nadal and his team and with rivals like Roger Federer. Not just a book about tennis, The Warrior draws much wider lessons from Nadal’s approach to competition. Check out his site Tennis and Beyond here

Sport and Psychoanalysis: What Sport Reveals about Our Unconscious Desires, Fantasies, and Fears (Lexington Books, 2024) explores the intersection of sport and psychoanalysis, emphasizing the often-overlooked psycho-social dimensions underpinning the experience of sport. In this podcast, Jordan Osserman speaks to editors Jack Black and Joseph S. Reynoso about the book and their wider, ongoing work on the topic.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

The debate over the inclusion of gender diverse people in sport has become the latest battleground in the fight for basic human rights and equality. Trans and nonbinary people around the world are facing physical harm and violence—including death—at unprecedented rates. In Let Us Play: Winning the Battle for Gender Diverse Athletes (Beacon Press, 2025), trans athlete Harrison Browne and investigative journalist Rachel Browne reveal how the opposition towards gender diverse athletes is fueled by fear and a moral panic as opposed to facts around what makes “a level playing field.” Interweaving Harrison’s firsthand experience as a transgender athlete with exclusive accounts—from athletes, coaches, policymakers, and advocates on the front lines—Let Us Play dismantles the illusion that sports have ever been fair, that trans athletes pose a threat to women’s sports, and that gender-affirming healthcare for athletes should be prohibitive to play. Calling for a reframing of the binaries from youth and high school l

Joshua K. Wright, The NBA's Global Empire: How the League Became an International Powerhouse (McFarland, 2025)  During the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, the Dream Team, a collective of the National Basketball Association's top talent led by Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Charles Barkley, shook up the world as they amazed spectators and opponents on their way to winning gold. Their success introduced the world to the NBA's charismatic superstars and their artistic brand of basketball. Over the next two decades, youth outside of America dreamed of becoming the next Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James. The NBA took advantage of its popularity in China by forming lucrative television and streaming deals and opening training academies. By the 2022-23 NBA season, there were 109 international players from 39 countries, a Canadian franchise, and a league in Africa. Today's best players are Africans, Canadians and Europeans like Nikola Jokic and Victor Wembanyama. This book presents t

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Andrew Forbes about his phenomenal novella, McCurdle’s Arm: A Fiction (Invisible Publishing, July 16, 2024). Southern Ontario, 1892. The Ashburnham Pine Groves are a semi-professional baseball club in the South Western Ontario Base-Ball Players’ Association, sponsored by the Grafton Brewery, makers of Ashburnham’s Famous Pine Grove Ale. When sober the Ashburnham players are an impressive group, though coarse and occasionally cretinous, and as with any collection of men, not without their peculiarities. Robert James McCurdle is one of their most formidable pitchers, though he understands that his body won’t let him perform at a high level forever. McCurdle’s Arm is an account of a particular man in his particular time, playing a version of baseball devoid of the comforts of the modern game, rife with violence, his employment always precarious. Against this backdrop McCurdle must choose between his love for the game and his desire to be reunited with the wom

Commercial art is more than just mass-produced publicity; it constructs social and political ideologies that impact the public’s everyday life. In The Fine Art of Persuasion: Corporate Advertising Design, Nation, and Empire in Modern Japan (Duke University Press, 2025), Gennifer Weisenfeld examines the evolution of Japanese advertising graphic design from the early 1900s through the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, a pivotal design event that rebranded Japan on the world stage. Through richly illustrated case studies, Weisenfeld tells the story of how modern corporations and consumer capitalism transformed Japan’s visual culture and artistic production across the pre- and postwar periods, revealing how commercial art helped constitute the ideological formations of nation- and empire-building. Weisenfeld also demonstrates, how under the militarist regime of imperial Japan, national politics were effectively commodified and marketed through the same mechanisms of mass culture that were used to promote consumer goods. Using

Tens of millions of children in the United States participate in youth sport, a pastime widely believed to be part of a good childhood. Yet most children who enter youth sport are driven to quit by the time they enter adolescence, and many more are sidelined by its high financial burdens. Until now, there has been little legal scholarly attention paid to youth sport or its reform. In More Than Play: How Law, Policy, and Politics Shape American Youth Sport (University of California Press, 2025) Dr. Dionne Koller sets the stage for a different approach by illuminating the law and policy assumptions supporting a model that puts children's bodies to work in an activity that generates significant surplus value. In doing so, she identifies the wide array of beneficiaries who have a stake in a system that is much more than just play—and the political choices that protect these parties' interests at children's expense. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military i

What would a rodeo open to anyone and everyone look like? In their new book, Slapping Leather: Queer Cowfolx at the Gay Rodeo (U Washington, 2023), history professors Elyssa Ford (Northwest Missouri State) and Rebecca Scofield (University of Idaho) argue that the International Gay Rodeo Associaton (IGRA) provides a template. Founded in the 1970s as an alternative space that typically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, gay rodeo has evolved into its present day form: a campy, raucous, and accepting spectacle of gay masculinity and gender play in all its forms. It's not a perfect space - there are still boundaries, binaries, and traditional barriers which constrain some aspects of gay rodeo as an open form of competition - but as the oral histories and deep archival research in this book show, it is an institution that has proven capable of weathering the storms of pandemics, politics, and internal debates. Slapping Leather tracks the development, growth, and dynamic present of this uniquely Western, and uniquely que

As they compete in leagues around the world, elite women’s basketball players continually adjust to new cultures, rules, and contracts. Courtney M. Cox follows athletes, coaches, journalists, and advocates of women’s basketball as they pursue careers within the sport. Despite all attempts to contain them or prevent forward momentum, they circumvent expectations and open new possibilities within and outside of the game. Throughout the book, Cox explores the intersection of race and gender against the backdrop of the WNBA, NCAA, and other leagues within the United States and around the world. Blending interviews and participant observation with content analysis, she charts how athletes and advocates of women’s basketball illuminate new forms of navigating the global sports-media complex. Timely and original, Double Crossover: Gender, Media, and Politics in Global Basketball (U Illinois Press, 2025) takes readers into the lived world of women’s basketball to shed light on the struggles, triumphs, and contribut

The 1909 opening of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway marked a foundational moment in the history of automotive racing. Events at the famed track and others like it also helped launch America's love affair with cars and an embrace of road systems that transformed cities and shrank perceptions of space. Brian Ingrassia tells the story of the legendary oval's early decades. This story revolves around Speedway cofounder and visionary businessman Carl Graham Fisher, whose leadership in the building of the transcontinental Lincoln Highway and the iconic Dixie Highway had an enormous impact on American mobility. Ingrassia looks at the Speedway's history as a testing ground for cars and airplanes, its multiple close brushes with demolition, and the process by which racing became an essential part of the Golden Age of Sports. At the same time, he explores how the track's past reveals the potent links between sports capitalism and the selling of nostalgia, tradition, and racing legends. Learn more about your ad choices