Sports spectators / Allen Guttmann ; book design by Laiying Chong.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In his previous books Allen Guttmann has provided incisive perspectives on Avery Brundage's role in the Olympic movement and on the nature of modern sports. Now, in his latest book, the accomplished historian of sport turns his attention from the playing field to the grandstand. Sports Spectators, the first historical study of the subject from antiquity to today, is at once erudite and entertaining; comprehensive and succint.

Guttmann first examines the history of sports spectators, starting with Ancient Greece and Rome. He then moves on to the Renaissance and traces three early sports -the tournament, archery, and early versions of football. The author then focuses on the emergenece of sports in post-Renaissance England, and discusses the curious spectacle of animal sports (bear- and bull-baiting and cockfighting), as well as the first appearance of combat sports such as sword fighting, stick fighting, and boxing. The book concludes its historical view by exploring contemporary baseball, football, rowing, tennis, and golf.

From his chronological narrative, Guttmann shifts to detailed analysis of the economic, sociological, and psychological aspects of sports spectatorship. Who were, and are, sports spectators? What is their gender and social class? Have they normally been participants as well as fans? What are the political functions of sports-watching? What are the social dynamics of spectatorship?

Guttmann provides fresh insights which will be useful to scholars and fascinating to everyone. Sports Spectators also looks at the dramatic transformations radio and television have made, and offers an incisive critique of today's sports-related violence, including the increasingly frequent incidences of spectator hooliganism. How violent (or peaceful) have spectators traditionally been? Has spectator violence increased or decreased?

You needn't be a season ticket-holder to enjoy Sports Spectators. Allen Guttmann makes the history of fandom come alive for any reader interested in Western culture and what forms of entertainment reveal about us, as well as those concerned with the recent growth of spectator violence.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Author of two fine sports histories, From Ritual to Record and The Games Must Go On, Guttmann, professor of American studies at Amherst, here tackles the questions of who views sports and why. After a feeble look at spectating in ancient Greece and Rome, for which there are few sources, the narrative gains momentum and is exceedingly thorough in treating the most recent two centuries. In general, Guttmann shows, the appeal of various sports has been heavily dependent on class: while the British aristocracy moved from jousts to horse races to cricket, the peasants went from medieval football to bear-baiting to soccer. Class differences, he believes, help to explain spectator violence in modern sports: hooliganism at a golf match is unheard of, while it is common at soccer games. After effectively demolishing Marxist views of sport as the new opiate of the masses, he concludes that sports serve as a unifying factor in society. (October) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

Guttmann (Amherst), who is the author of From Ritual to Record (CH, Oct '78), has written a brief but ambitious essay examining the nature of sport spectatorship from antiquity to the present day. Through a multidisciplinary approach, he examines the social characteristics of sports crowds, their social behavior, and the political and social significance of their behavior. Guttmann's particular concern is identifying the extent of violent behavior of fans in various historical eras and explaining the causes of crowd conduct in those respective periods. The author argues that the civilizing process was a major factor in explaining riotous behavior among crowds in antiquity and the early modern era, and not the degree of violence of the sports they were watching. Modern sports crowds were more influenced by the cultural hegemony developed through concepts like fair play, sportsmanship, and gentlemanly behavior, along with internal factors like controlled access to arenas, seating by classes, and the presence of police. Contemporary crowds are normally nonviolent except when competitors represent nearby communities with deep social cleavages. Guttmann's book is based on an extensive reading of a multitude of published sources in several languages. Highly recommended for upper-division undergraduates.-S.A. Riess, Northeastern Illinois University