Synopses & Reviews
Soccer. Football. The beautiful game. The worlds most popular sport goes by many names, but for decades, fans have agreed on one thing: the greatest player of all time was Pelé. Now the legendary star, ambassador, and humanitarian shares a global vision for what soccer can accomplish. Now he shares his story, his experience, and his insights on the game for the very first time.
Before Messi, before Ronaldo, before Beckham, there was Edson Arantes do Nascimentoknown simply as Pelé. A national treasure, he created pure magic with his accomplishments on the field: an unprecedented three World Cup championships and the all-time scoring record, with 1,283 goals in his twenty year career.
Now, with the World Cup returning after more than sixty years to Brazilthe country often credited with perfecting the sportsoccer has a unique opportunity to encourage change on a global level. And as the tournaments official ambassador, Pelé is ready to be the face of progress.
For the first time ever Pelé explores the recent history of the game and provides new insights into soccers role connecting and galvanizing players around the world. He has traveled the world as the global ambassador for soccer and in support of charitable organizations such as Unicef, promoting the positive influences soccer can have to transform young men and women, struggling communities, even entire nations. In groundbreaking detail and with unparalleled openness, he shares his most inspiring experiences, heartwarming stories and hard-won wisdom, and he puts the game in perspective.
This is Pelés legacy, his way of passing on everything hes learned and inspiring a new generation. In Why Soccer Matters, Pelé details his ambitious goals for the future of the sport and, by extension, the world.
Commemorative poster inside the jacket
Review
and#8220;In this original and compelling examination of the Tour de Franceand#8217;s commercial, economic, and cultural history, Reed inserts the worldand#8217;s greatest bicycle race into the broader narrative of globalization even as he illustratesand#160; the important role local and national context plays in shaping the Tourand#8217;s many meanings.and#160;
Selling the Yellow Jersey demonstrates that sport does not simply reflect and exploit major trends in business strategies, leisure, and consumption patterns, celebrity and mass culture, and media innovation; it also shapes those trends in significant ways. In the process, Reed deepens our understanding of how the Tourand#8217;s internationalization has both challenged and reinforced longstanding notions of a distinctive and#8216;Frenchness.and#8217;and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Selling the Yellow Jersey is a provocative case study describing how twentieth-century globalization trends inherent in modern media, marketing, and consumerism interact with and transform the peculiarities of national and regional identities.and#160; Reed explains how by developing into a quintessential and yet contrived cornerstone of la France profonde, the Tour became a significant aspect of a developing national identity for the French as they struggled to adapt to post-war modernity and global commercial competition.and#160; At the same time, the Tour de France gave the world of international cycling, including its celebrity culture and its rules and ethics, the peculiarly French twist that it maintains through today.and#160; By focusing intently on the development of the Tour as a commercial venture, Selling the Yellow Jersey illuminates the perhaps unromantic yet undeniable ways that businessmen built modern sports and other mass entertainment spectacles in search of new ways to boost their profits, whether that meant selling more newspapers or directing more consumers' eyes to paid advertisements.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;In Selling the Yellow Jersey Reed deftly intertwines the stories and spectacles of the Tour de France alongside a fascinating reading of the shifting culture and politics that have shaped France over the past century.and#160; It is essential reading for sports fans, history buffs, and Francophiles alike."
Review
andldquo;Excellent. . . . Selling the Yellow Jersey is recommended reading for anyone interested in the fascinating history of this sport and its social, cultural and economic aspects.andrdquo;
Synopsis
The definitive book about soccer. With a new foreword for the American edition.
There may be no cultural practice more global than soccer. Rites of birth and marriage are infinitely diverse, but the rules of soccer are universal. No world religion can match its geographical scope. The single greatest simultaneous human collective experience is the World Cup final.
In this extraordinary tour de force, David Goldblatt tells the full story of soccer's rise from chaotic folk ritual to the world's most popular sport-now poised to fully establish itself in the USA. Already celebrated internationally, The Ball Is Round illuminates soccer's role in the political and social histories of modern societies, but never loses sight of the beauty, joy, and excitement of the game itself.
Synopsis
The definitive book about soccer, from the author of The Games: A Global History of the Olympics.
There may be no cultural practice more global than soccer. Rites of birth and marriage are infinitely diverse, but the rules of soccer are universal. No world religion can match its geographical scope. The single greatest simultaneous human collective experience is the World Cup final.
In this extraordinary tour de force, David Goldblatt tells the full story of soccer's rise from chaotic folk ritual to the world's most popular sport-now poised to fully establish itself in the USA. Already celebrated internationally, The Ball Is Round illuminates soccer's role in the political and social histories of modern societies, but never loses sight of the beauty, joy, and excitement of the game itself.
Synopsis
Yellow Livestrong wristbands were taken off across America in early 2013 when Lance Armstrong confessed to Oprah Winfrey that he had doped during the seven Tour de France races he won.and#160; But the foreign cycling world, which always viewed Armstrong with suspicion, had already moved on. The bellwether events of the year were Chris Froomeandrsquo;s victory in the Tour and the ousting of Pat McQuaid as director of theand#160;Union Cycliste Internationale. Even without Armstrong, the Tour will roll onandmdash; its gigantic entourage includes more than 200 racers, 450 journalists, 260 cameramen, 2,400 support vehicles carrying 4,500 people, and a seven-mile-long publicity caravan. It remains one of the most-watched annual sporting events on television and a global commercial juggernaut.
Inand#160;Selling the Yellow Jersey, Eric Reed examines the Tourandrsquo;s development in France as well as the eventandrsquo;s global athletic, cultural, and commercial influences. The race is the crown jewel of French cycling, and at first the newspapers that owned the Tour were loath to open up their monopoly on coverage to state-owned television. However, the opportunity for huge payoffs prevailed, and France tapped into global networks of spectatorship, media, business, athletes, and exchanges of expertise and personnel. In the process, the Tour helped endow world cycling with a particularly French character, culture, and structure, while providing proof that globalization was not merely a form of Americanization, imposed on a victimized world.and#160;Selling the Yellow Jerseyand#160;explores the behind-the-scenes growth of the Tour, while simultaneously chronicling Franceandrsquo;s role as a dynamic force in the global arena.
Synopsis
The Tour de France is the most-watched annual sporting event on television, surpassed only in viewership by the quadrennial Olympics and soccer World Cup. But while those events are explicitly international, the Tour is a distinctively French event. Eric Reed tackles the dual questions of what it has meant for France to host this media extravaganza every year, and what it has meant for the world of cycling that its premier event is uniquely French.
The story of the men who have raced the Tour de France has been told many times, but the growth of the Tour itself is taken for granted. From its beginnings as a stunt to sell newspapers in 1903 up to today's media spectacle (produced by a staff of 300, with dozens of cars, trucks, buses, and helicopters, and watched by more people than any other annual sporting event), the Tour is a unique window onto France in a changing world. Eric Reed takes us behind the scenes, not just onto the team buses (though the riders' stories are not forgotten) but also into the offices of the organizers (from Henri Desgrange through Christian Prudhomme) as they navigate international politics, the business of selling newspapers, and the quasi-governmental institutions of French TV and radio. Too, we see the role of the Tour in the life of two cities which have hosted stages regularlyand#151;Brest and Pauand#151;and see not only the ways in which they transform themselves in order to host this traveling behemoth, but also the ways in which the Tour has changed their role in France and the world. Reflecting the nationalist politics of its founder Desgrange, the Tour has always represented a distinctively French contribution to international sport, culture, and media.
About the Author
Pelé started his professional career at the age of sixteen for Santos Futebol Clube, a club he stayed with for nearly two decades. In 1958, he won his first World Cup for Brazil at age seventeenthe youngest winner ever. He went on to win another two World Cups in 1962 and 1970, making him the only player in the world today with three Jules Rimet trophies to his name. He is the all-time leading scorer in the history of the sport (1,282 goals in 1,366 matches).
Named one of the Top 20 Most Important People of the 20th Century” (Time) and Football Player of the Century” (FIFA), Pelé today maintains his commitment to the sport and to society by fulfilling various roles as spokesperson, ambassador and philanthropist.