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How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization
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Sales rank 66,242
Customers rating (based on 104 reviews)
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Soccer is much more than a game, or even a way of life. It is a perfect window into the cross–currents of today's world, with all its joys and its sorrows. In this remarkably insightful, wide–ranging work of reportage, Franklin Foer takes us on a surprising tour through the world of soccer, shining a spotlight on the clash of civilizations, the international economy, and just about everything in between. How Soccer Explains the World is an utterly original book that makes sense of our troubled times.
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| Publisher | Harper Perennial | | Release date | 07/2005 | | Availability | Usually ships in 24 hours | | Edition | Paperback |
| | List price | $13.99 | | Our price | $10.07 (you save 28.02%) | | Used price | from $1.23 |
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 HORRIBLE DELIVERY
the book is in horrible shape even though i bought i brand new, and on top of that it took forever to get delivered so i didnt have a book for class.
 How Soccer Explains The World
This book was very well written. Franklin Foer's use of soccer as a way to explain the temper of the world today was very clever. From globalization,religion and politics,Franklin brings it all together in a well conceived book.If Americans can't understand the world's attraction to soccer this is the book to start!
 Good quick summary for a beginner
My knowledge of soccer is limited to my son's games and watching some World Cup games, so this book is full of information that was new and fresh for me. I didn't buy into the idea that soccer explains or reflects globalization -- a silly idea that was probably necessary for the author to get a book contract -- but if that was the excuse for him to do a survey of the top teams in the world, that's fine with me.
It's a fun run around the globe, popping in to visit some of the most famous teams in the world and finding out how they got where they are. But I also suspected, as other reviewers have noted, that the facts aren't quite as portrayed in the book. The concluding chapter on soccer in the US is silly and superficial, and I suspect that a deep fan of soccer in any of the other countries described would also feel that the author has taken a few facts and a few cliches and woven them together to fit his thesis, rather than developing a thesis that fit the facts.
I'm left with one big question. I can't tell if hooliganism is really dangerous around the world, or not. It seems like it's a terror, given the lunatics that the author spends time with. Unquestionably, they are thugs with deep records of violence. On the other hand, real people go to games every week, and they don't wind up in the hospital. So, how is this happening? The author doesn't really explain how a regular person can go to a game in some of those arenas and not be beaten to a pulp either on the way in or on the way home.
Still, I enjoyed the book and marveled at some of the anecdotes that were shared. The way that star players and team owners have leveraged their fame is astounding -- and it makes the success of a baseball owner or football player turned US Senator pale in comparison. For a good understanding of how fervid the interest in soccer is around the world and what it means to the culture, this book is a great place to start.
 Disappointing
I grew up in the US before youth soccer programs grew to their current popularity. Thus, when I began playing in a weekly office soccer game and found that it was truly a beautiful game, I immediately tried to immerse myself in soccer history, strategy, and lore. I added this book to my reading list because of the title. I am, by trade, a political economist - combining globalization and soccer seemed like a charming idea. I was grossly disappointed.
The book is written in a journalistic style that is easy to read and the anecdotes are rather entertaining. That is, however, the extent to which I found this book at all enjoyable. First, the author's narrative often fails to connect the anecdotes with the broader point that he is attempting to make. Even worse, the author often makes claims and offers no support for those claims. When reading pop-nonfiction, one must, to some extent, trust the author's claims. However, the author is attempting to connect soccer to well studied social phenomena - and on many ocassions gets it wrong. Moreover, the author's obvious biases make it incredibly difficult not to scoff at his assertions, especially when he offers no support other than his own word.
Additionally, the title suggests that soccer will be somehow tied to globalization, and yet the author only mentions globalization in terms of continued racism. I am inclined to believe that despite his experience with political journalism, the author has only the most basic understanding of the popular notion of globalization and is incapable of providing a meaningful application and analysis. This book is not an analysis or a fresh look at soccer. Instead it is the result of a journalist taking a year off from work, traveling around to watch soccer games and collect stories, and then trying to find a way to write them up in a book with a more intriguing title than "Tales from the pitch".
On more than one ocassion, I read segments of the book aloud to various people for cheap laughs - colleagues, my political economist/soccer fanatic boyfriend, my boyfriends soccer fanatic friends. It is at best, a collection of interesting stories about soccer with some very poor narrative in between. If that's all you're looking for, read this book. If you are looking for something more substantive, look elsewhere.
 Brits need not apply
Like some other reviewers here, I had very high hopes for this book, most of which were, in fact, fulfillled. It IS, however, a very American perspective on the game which is likely to be pretty unfulfilling for readers coming from cultures with longer histories with soccer. Conversely, it was quite satisfying for me as an American because it does manage to capture the sense of frustration Americans have felt with the lack of traction the game has gotten in this country, and the sense of hope that it is finally reaching critical mass.
If you are an American reader, and you care anything about where the game has been and where it's going, the book is worth reading!
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