Gaming The World Book Report

Arabdho Majumder

December 8, 2014

Gonzalez 3rd

Book Report: Gaming the World

Introduction

In recent decades sports has started to become globalized and this has affected politics and culture. This book looks at the different effects of sports around the world in a globalized manner and in a local manner. The book also focuses on how the globalization of sports has resulted in more people being attracted to it and how it has opened new doors to get in. Sports also gives an opportunity for people to set aside their differences to create a “cultural cosmopolitan.” The many different effects of sports are studied in depth and the history of sports is analyzed in non-traditional ways such as looking at political importance and fan culture.

Location

“Small wonder then that sports are also the subject of a vast array of popular literature on heroes, legends, club histories, championships, and games. Sports subjects appear in popular movies, television series, and various other narratives that captivate millions, even billions, of people around the world” (2). Athletes can become a huge part of local culture because of the weight that their name carries. They appear around you so often that they become an important part of your life that you become used to. In certain cases, sports can define the entire culture of a particular place. Another human characteristic is, “political campaigning, governing, and symbolic politics often entail references to sports” (9). This shows that sports is an exceptionally important part in politics. Politics is a big part of culture as the government will define to a point what kind of culture a country has. “The very first organized football game west of the Allegheny Mountains” (301). This shows a physical characteristic of place because the Allegheny Mountains is a mountain range which is a land form, and land forms are a physical characteristic. Another example of human characteristics of place is, “They could now attract thousands of spectators closer to home by building major concrete-based arenas on their campuses” (301). The arenas are an architectural design made by humans which qualifies it to be a human characteristic of

This shows how humans had to modify the earth in order to play soccer. They had to remove trees and bushes in order to create a soccer field and that is modifying the environment. Another is example of modifying the environment is, “a fellow wearing a New York Yankees t-shirt while simultaneously sporting a Boston Red Sox cap in the Vienna subway” (155). The subway was created by digging underground and creating a pathway underground. In order to do this, they had to modify the environment. “Harvard rowers ate ‘rare beef and mutton, stale bread, oatmeal gruel, only small quantities of milk and water, and no fruit or vegetables’” (292). This is an example of depending on the environment because all the food that they are eating had to come from the earth and through farming. They had to depend on the environment in order to get the food. “It [soccer] can be played virtually on any surface, under any weather conditions, and with little equipment” (68). Soccer is a sport that has adapted to the environment because it can be played in any climate and weather. Humans have been able to create a sport that can be played in any environment and thus this is an example of human’s adapting to the