Sports in South America

The first book to examine the transformation of sporting cultures in South America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

Sports in South America follows the transformation of sporting cultures in South America leading up to Uruguay’s hosting of the first FIFA Men’s World Cup in 1930. Matthew Brown shows how South American soccer culture, envied worldwide, sprang out of societies that were already playing and watching games well before British sportsmen arrived to teach “the beautiful game.” These vibrant and distinct sporting traditions, including cycling, boxing, cockfighting, bull-fighting, cricket, baseball, horse-racing, were marked by South American societies’ indigenous and colonial pasts, and by their leaders’ desire to participate in what they saw as a global movement toward human progress. Drawing on a wealth of original archival research, Brown debunks legends, highlights the stories of forgotten sportswomen and indigenous sports, and unpacks the social and cultural connections within South America and with the rest of the world.

“"This book offers deep and nuanced insight into the sporting world in South America and is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the intricate dance between sports, globalization, urbanization, culture, and identity. It will guide scholars and aficionados through the early years of South American sports, and will become a classic."--Christopher Gaffney, New York University "Matthew Brown's excellent book on the development of sport in South America before 1930 is not just for sports historians. His pathbreaking study provides significant insights on several sociocultural themes that are central to modern Latin American history--race, gender, neocolonialism, violence, and social discipline."--Rory M. Miller, author of Britain and Latin America in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries "There is no such thing as a definitive history, but this first history of sports in South America is simply brilliant and unmatched. Matthew Brown has written a reference work for scholars and amateurs."-- Pablo Alabarces, University of Buenos Aires "This book shows how South America's preexisting sporting cultures intertwined and shaped global sporting history from 1862 until 1930. Brown's insightful attention to local and touring sporting practices, experiences, and debates suggest new paths toward the decolonization of sports history."--Ingrid Johanna Bol”

Winner of The Lord Aberdare Literary Prize 2024

“This book offers deep and nuanced insight into the sporting world in South America and is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the intricate dance between sports, globalization, urbanization, culture, and identity. It will guide scholars and aficionados through the early years of South American sports, and will become a classic.”—Christopher Gaffney, New York University

“Matthew Brown’s excellent book on the development of sport in South America before 1930 is not just for sports historians. His pathbreaking study provides significant insights on several sociocultural themes that are central to modern Latin American history—race, gender, neocolonialism, violence, and social discipline.”—Rory M. Miller, author of Britain and Latin America in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

“There is no such thing as a definitive history, but this first history of sports in South America is simply brilliant and unmatched. Matthew Brown has written a reference work for scholars and amateurs.”— Pablo Alabarces, University of Buenos Aires

“This book shows how South America’s preexisting sporting cultures intertwined and shaped global sporting history from 1862 until 1930. Brown’s insightful attention to local and touring sporting practices, experiences, and debates suggest new paths toward the decolonization of sports history.”—Ingrid Johanna Bolívar Ramirez, University of the Andes (Bogotá)

Matthew Brown is professor of Latin American history at the University of Bristol. He is the author of From Frontiers to Football: An Alternative History of Latin America since 1800. He lives in Bristol, England.

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