This multivolume set is much more than a collection of essays on sports and sporting cultures from around the world: it also details how and why sports are played wherever they exist, and examines key charismatic athletes from around the world who have transcended their sports. Sports Around the World: History, Culture, and Practice provides a unique, global overview of sports and sports cultures. Unlike most works of this type, this book provides both essays that examine general topics, such as globalization and sport, international relations and sport, and tourism and sport, as well as essays on sports history, culture, and practice in world regions—for example, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, Europe, and Oceania—in order to provide a more global perspective. These essays are followed by entries on specific sports, world athletes, stadiums and arenas, famous games and matches, and major controversies. Spanning topics as varied as modern professional cycling to the fictional movie Rocky to the deadly ball game of the ancient Mayans, the first three volumes contain overview essays and entries for specific sports that have been and are currently practiced around the world. The fourth volume provides a compendium of information on the winners of major sporting competitions from around the world. Readers will gain invaluable insights into how sports have been enjoyed throughout all of human culture, and more fully comprehend their cultural contexts. The entries provide suggestions for further reading on each topic—helpful to general readers, students with school projects, university students and academics alike. Additionally, the four-volume Sports Around the World spotlights key charismatic athletes who have changed a sport or become more than just an outstanding player.

"This multivolume set is much more than a collection of essays on sports and sporting cultures from around the world: it also details how and why sports are played wherever they exist, and examines key charismatic athletes from around the world who have transcended their sports"--

Two leading sports authorities explore the culture of soccer around the world, considering the sport as a means to better understand a society's past, present, and future. How popular is soccer worldwide? Here's one indicator: 3.2 billion people—nearly half of the planet's population—tuned in to watch the 2010 World Cup on television. Soccer matches attract a gargantuan number of fans from around the globe due to the popularity of the sport itself but also because of the nationalism it inspires and the entertainment spectacle of the big games. Distinguished authors and sports authorities, Charles Parrish and John Nauright, examine how soccer impacts societies worldwide by shaping national identities, providing common ground for diplomatic issues, and forging economic and social development. This one-volume geographic guide studies the places in which soccer has a major impact, examining each region's teams, major tournaments, key players, and international performance. The authors organize the book geographically by region and country, with entries reviewing the history of the sport and cultural impact on the area. Each profile concludes with fascinating game-based statistics, such as winners of major tournaments and top goal scorers. The book covers 20 countries including England, Brazil, Egypt, the United States, Cameroon, and Korea.

Providing an in-depth look at the lives of women and girls in approximately 150 countries, this multivolume reference set offers readers transnational and postcolonial analysis of the many issues that are critical to the success of women and girls. For millennia, women around the world have shouldered the responsibility of caring for their families. But in recent decades, women have emerged as a major part of the global workforce, balancing careers and family life. How did this change happen? And how are societies in developing countries responding and adapting to women's newer roles in society? This four-volume encyclopedia examines the lives of women around the world, with coverage that includes the education of girls and teens; the key roles women play in their families, careers, religions, and cultures; how issues for women intersect with colonialism, transnationalism, feminism, and established norms of power and control. Organized geographically, each volume presents detailed entries about the lives of women in particular countries. Additionally, each volume offers sidebars that spotlight topics related to women and girls in specific regions or focus on individual women's lives and contributions. Primary source documents include sections of countries' constitutions that are relevant to women and girls, United Nations resolutions and national resolutions regarding women and girls, and religious statements and proclamations about women and girls. The organization of the set enables readers to take an in-depth look at individual countries as well as to make comparisons across countries.

This exciting, accessible introduction to the field of Sports Studies is the most comprehensive guide yet to the relationships between sport, culture and society. Taking an international perspective, Sport, Culture and Society provides students with the insight they need to think critically about the nature of sport, and includes: a clear and comprehensive structure unrivalled coverage of the history, culture, media, sociology, politics and anthropology of sport coverage of core topics and emerging areas extensive original research and new case study material. The book offers a full range of features to help guide students and lecturers, including essay topics, seminar questions, key definitions, extracts from primary sources, extensive case studies, and guides to further reading. Sport, Culture and Society represents both an important course resource for students of sport and also sets a new agenda for the social scientific study of sport.

The aim of this book is to provide an overview of perspectives and approaches to sports development focusing on sport systems, sport participation and public policy towards sports. It includes twelve European countries covering all regions of Europe and eleven countries from around the globe. The objective is to present an overview of the diversity of approaches taken to sport development, focusing on the different sport systems and how sport is financed, the underlying applications of sport policy and how it is reflected in sport participation. This book takes a comparative approach which is reflected in each chapter following a similar structure. The diversity of sports systems in Europe and other continents and their (historical) context is shown. Thereby a range of policy approaches underpinning sport development around the world are presented, making it of interest to both academics and policy-makers concerned with sports economics and policy.