JHU SAIS Professor Michael Mandelbaum Publishes New Book on the Meaning of Sports
Washington, D.C.-06/3/2004 - Michael Mandelbaum, Christian A. Herter Professor and director of the American Foreign Policy Program at the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), has just published The Meaning of Sports: Why Americans Watch Baseball, Basketball and Football and What They See When They Do. New York publisher PublicAffairs released the book on 06/1.
After publishing eight books and editing another 13 over the past 25 years on foreign policy and international relations, Mandelbaum has published his first book on a very different subject-one dear to his heart and the hearts of millions of other Americans.
The Meaning of Sports describes and explains how, over the course of the 20th century, these three team sports became immensely popular forms of entertainment, multibillion dollar industries, and sources of intense personal loyalty for tens of millions of people.
"This book has its origins in a brief exchange with my wife," says Mandelbaum. "One Monday night I was watching a football game on television. She entered the room and stopped to look at the screen. Puzzled by something she saw she asked me: 'Didn't they just show that?' 'Yes they did,' I responded. 'They always show the play when it happens and then they show it again. It's called instant replay.' She thought for a moment and then asked, 'Isn't once enough?' It was, I thought, a good question. Why, for so many people, isn't once enough? Why do tens of millions of my fellow Americans and I spend so much of our time watching so many games? Baseball, football, and basketball play a major role in American life. Just what is that role and how did these three sports come to fill it? And what is distinctive about each of the three?
"I have written The Meaning of Sports to answer these questions, for myself and other passionate sports fans but also for people who are, like my wife, curious enough to stop and ask what it is a fan is watching, and why."
Mandelbaum has achieved his goal, for both groups of readers.
Bill Walsh, the former coach of the San Francisco 49ers and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame describes the book as "a marvelous piece of work [which] will be of interest to the entire spectrum of our society."
Thomas L. Friedman, the foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times wrote on 05/31 that this "delightful new book . . . contains many parallels between what makes for successful teams and successful countries."
Whether he is writing about baseball as the agrarian game, football as similar to warfare, basketball as the embodiment of post-industrial society, or the moral havoc created by baseball's designated hitter rule, Mandelbaum applies the full force of his intellect and wit to subjects about which so many Americans care passionately: the games they played in their youth and continue to follow as adults. By offering a fresh and unconventional perspective on these games, The Meaning of Sports makes for fascinating and rewarding reading.
Written to be understood both by devoted sports fans and by those who have thus failed to understand their appeal, the book evoked this response from ABC News journalist Lynn Sherr: "So that's why we sports fans are so devoted. Thank you, Michael Mandelbaum, for your dazzling and witty insight into this addictive American wonder-for giving new meaning to the games we play. I will watch my next jump shot with renewed awe."
Mandelbaum is one of the nation's leading authorities on American foreign policy and international relations and the author or co-author of eight books, including The Ideas That Conquered The World: Peace, Democracy, and Free Markets in the Twenty-First Century. He also writes a regular foreign affairs column for Newsday.
SAIS is one of the country's leading graduate schools devoted to the study of international relations. Located along Embassy Row in Washington's Dupont Circle area, the school enrolls more than 450 full-time graduate students and mid-career professionals and has trained more than 10,000 alumni in all aspects of international affairs.
To schedule an interview with the author or to request a review copy of the book, contact Gene Taft at PublicAffairs at 1.877.782.1234 or [email protected].
For more information, contact Felisa Neuringer Klubes in the SAIS Public Affairs Office at 202.663.5626 or [email protected].