The editors use the unique lens of the history of sports to examine ethnic experiences in North America since 1840. Comprised of 12 original essays and an Introduction, it chronicles sport as a social institution through which various ethnic and racial groups attempted to find the way to social and psychological acceptance and cultural integration. Included are chapters on Native Americans, Irish-Americans, German-Americans, Canadians, African-Americans, Italian-Americans, Hispanics, and several more, showing how their sports participation also provided these communities with some measure of social mobility, self-esteem, and a shared pride.
About the Author: GEORGE EISEN is Professor and Coordinator of Sociocultural Study and Sport and Play at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. He is the author of Children and Play in the the Holocaust (1988), a Choice Outstanding Academic Book of the Year, and Understanding Leisure (1990), as well as numerous articles in The Journal of Sport History, Play & Culture, The International Journal of the Sociology of Sport, Journal of Sport & Social Issues, and many others.
DAVID K. WIGGINS is Professor of Physical Education at George Mason University. He is the author of numerous articles dealing primarily with African-American involvement in sport, in such journals as The Journal of Sport History, Canadian Journal of History of Sport, The International Journal of the History of Sport, and Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport.
