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The Sport Of Kings And The Kings Of Crime
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Book Synopsis The Sport of Kings and the Kings of Crime by : Steven A. Riess
Download or read book The Sport of Kings and the Kings of Crime written by Steven A. Riess and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-24 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thoroughbred racing was one of the first major sports in early America. Horse racing thrived because it was a high-status sport that attracted the interest of both old and new money. It grew because spectators enjoyed the pageantry, the exciting races, and, most of all, the gambling. As the sport became a national industry, the New York metropolitan area, along with the resort towns of Saratoga Springs (New York) and Long Branch (New Jersey), remained at the center of horse racing with the most outstanding race courses, the largest purses, and the finest thoroughbreds. Riess narrates the history of horse racing, detailing how and why New York became the national capital of the sport from the mid-1860s until the early twentieth century. The sport’s survival depended upon the racetrack being the nexus between politicians and organized crime. The powerful alliance between urban machine politics and track owners enabled racing in New York to flourish. Gambling, the heart of racing’s appeal, made the sport morally suspect. Yet democratic politicians protected the sport, helping to establish the State Racing Commission, the first state agency to regulate sport in the United States. At the same time, racetracks became a key connection between the underworld and Tammany Hall, enabling illegal poolrooms and off-course bookies to operate. Organized crime worked in close cooperation with machine politicians and local police officers to protect these illegal operations. In The Sport of Kings and the Kings of Crime, Riess fills a long-neglected gap in sports history, offering a richly detailed and fascinating chronicle of thoroughbred racing’s heyday.
Book Synopsis The Sport of Kings by : C. E. Morgan
Download or read book The Sport of Kings written by C. E. Morgan and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2016-05-03 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize Winner of the Kirkus Prize for Fiction • A Recipient of the Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction • A Finalist for the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction • A Finalist for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction • A Finalist for the Rathbones Folio Prize • Longlisted for an Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence • One of New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Book Named a Best Book of the Year by Entertainment Weekly • GQ • The New York Times (Selected by Dwight Garner) • NPR • The Wall Street Journal • San Francisco Chronicle • Refinery29 • Booklist • Kirkus Reviews • Commonweal Magazine "In its poetic splendor and moral seriousness, The Sport of Kings bears the traces of Faulkner, Morrison, and McCarthy. . . . It is a contemporary masterpiece."—San Francisco Chronicle Hailed by The New Yorker for its “remarkable achievements,” The Sport of Kings is an American tale centered on a horse and two families: one white, a Southern dynasty whose forefathers were among the founders of Kentucky; the other African-American, the descendants of their slaves. It is a dauntless narrative that stretches from the fields of the Virginia piedmont to the abundant pastures of the Bluegrass, and across the dark waters of the Ohio River; from the final shots of the Revolutionary War to the resounding clang of the starting bell at Churchill Downs. As C. E. Morgan unspools a fabric of shared histories, past and present converge in a Thoroughbred named Hellsmouth, heir to Secretariat and a contender for the Triple Crown. Newly confronted with one another in the quest for victory, the two families must face the consequences of their ambitions, as each is driven---and haunted---by the same, enduring question: How far away from your father can you run? A sweeping narrative of wealth and poverty, racism and rage, The Sport of Kings is an unflinching portrait of lives cast in the shadow of slavery and a moral epic for our time.
Book Synopsis Sports in American Life by : Richard O. Davies
Download or read book Sports in American Life written by Richard O. Davies and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-08-09 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The third edition of author Richard O. Davies' highly praised narrative of American sports, Sports in American Life: A History, features extensive revisions and updates to its presentation of an interpretative history of the relationship of sports to the larger themes of U.S. history. Updated include a new section on concussions caused by contact sports and new biographies of John Wooden and Joe Paterno. Features extensive revisions and updates, along with a leaner, faster-paced narrative than previous editions Addresses the social, economic, and cultural interaction between sports and gender, race, class, and other larger issues Provides expanded coverage of college sports, women in sports, race and racism in organized sports, and soccer's sharp rise in popularity Features an all-new section that tackles the growing controversy of head injuries and concussions caused by contact sports
Book Synopsis American National Pastimes - A History by : Mark Dyreson
Download or read book American National Pastimes - A History written by Mark Dyreson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-14 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the colonies that became the USA were still dominions of the British Empire they began to imagine their sporting pastimes as finer recreations than even those enjoyed in the motherland. From the war of independence and the creation of the republic to the twenty-first century, sporting pastimes have served as essential ingredients in forging nationhood in American history. This collection gathers the work of an all-star team of historians of American sport in order to explore the origins and meanings of the idea of national pastimes—of a nation symbolized by its sports. These wide-ranging essays analyze the claims of particular sports to national pastime status, from horse racing, hunting, and prize fighting in early American history to baseball, basketball, and football more than two centuries later. These essays also investigate the legal, political, economic, and culture patterns and the gender, ethnic, racial, and class dynamics of national pastimes, connecting sport to broader historical themes. American National Pastimes chronicles how and why the USA has used sport to define and debate the contours of nation. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.
Book Synopsis The Rise and Fall of Protestant Brooklyn by : Stuart M. Blumin
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of Protestant Brooklyn written by Stuart M. Blumin and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2022-09-15 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Herbert H. Lehman Prize by the New York Academy of History. In The Rise and Fall of Protestant Brooklyn, Stuart M. Blumin and Glenn C. Altschuler detail how nineteenth-century Brooklyn was dominated by Puritan New England Protestants and how their control unraveled with the arrival of diverse groups in the twentieth century. Before becoming a hub of urban diversity, Brooklyn was a charming "town across the river" from Manhattan, known for its churches and suburban life. This changed with the city's growth, new secular institutions, and Coney Island's attractions, which clashed with post-Puritan values. Despite these changes, Yankee-Protestant dominance continued until the influx of Southern and Eastern European immigrants. The Rise and Fall of Protestant Brooklyn explores how these new residents built a vibrant ethnic mosaic, laying the foundation for cultural pluralism and embedding it in the American Creed.
Book Synopsis Before Jackie Robinson by : Gerald R. Gems
Download or read book Before Jackie Robinson written by Gerald R. Gems and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2017-02 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the accomplishments and influence of Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, and Muhammad Ali are doubtless impressive solely on their merits, these luminaries of the Black sporting experience did not emerge spontaneously. Their rise was part of a gradual evolution in social and power relations in American culture between the 1890s and 1940s that included athletes such as jockey Isaac Murphy, barnstorming pilot Bessie Coleman, and golfer Teddy Rhodes. The contributions of these early athletes to our broader collective history, and their heroic confrontations with the entrenched racism of their times, helped bring about the incremental changes that after 1945 allowed for sports to be more fully integrated. Before Jackie Robinson details and analyzes the lives of these lesser-known but important athletes within the broader history of Black liberation. These figures not only excelled in their given sports but also transcended class and racial divides in making inroads into popular culture despite the societal restrictions placed on them. They were also among the first athletes to blur the line between athletics, entertainment, and celebrity culture. This volume presents a more nuanced account of early Black American athletes’ lives and their ongoing struggle for acceptance, relevance, and personal and group identity.
Book Synopsis Unnatural Ability by : Milton C. Toby
Download or read book Unnatural Ability written by Milton C. Toby and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2023-08-08 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a mere twelve months, between May 2020 and May 2021, horse racing's most recognizable face—Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert—had five horses that failed postrace drug tests. Among those was the 2021 Kentucky Derby winner, Medina Spirit. While the incident was a major scandal in the Thoroughbred racing world, it was only the latest in a series of drug-related infractions among elite athletes. Stories about systemic rule-breaking and "doping culture"—both human and equine—have put world-class athletes and their trainers under intense scrutiny. Each newly discovered instance of abuse forces fans to question the participants' integrity, and in the case of horse racing, their humanity. In Unnatural Ability: The History of Performance-Enhancing Drugs in Thoroughbred Racing, Milton C. Toby addresses the historical and contemporary context of the Thoroughbred industry's most pressing issue. While early attempts at boosting racehorses' performance were admittedly crude, widespread legal access to narcotics and stimulants has changed the landscape of horse racing, along with athletic governing bodies' ability to regulate it. With the sport at a critical turning point in terms of doping restrictions and sports betting, Toby delivers a comprehensive account of the practice of using performance-enhancing drugs to influence the outcome of Thoroughbred races since the late nineteenth century. Paying special attention to Thoroughbred racing's purse structure and its reliance on wagering to supplement a horse's winnings, Toby discusses how horse doping poses a unique challenge for gambling sports and what the industry and its players must do to survive the pressure to get ahead.
Book Synopsis The Notorious John Morrissey by : James C. Nicholson
Download or read book The Notorious John Morrissey written by James C. Nicholson and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2016-05-20 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Irish immigrant, a collection agent for crime bosses, a professional boxer, and a prodigious gambler, John Morrissey was -- if nothing else -- an unlikely candidate to become one of the most important figures in the history of Thoroughbred racing. As a young man, he worked as a political heavy in New York before going to San Francisco in search of fortune at the height of the Gold Rush. After returning to the east coast, he was hired by Tammany Hall and was soon locked in a deadly rivalry with William Poole, better known as "Bill the Butcher." As time went on, Morrissey parlayed his youthful exploits into a remarkably successful career as a businessman and politician. After establishing a gambling house in Saratoga Springs, the hard-nosed entrepreneur organized the first Thoroughbred race meet at what would become Saratoga Race Course in 1863. Morrissey went on to be elected to two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and two terms in the New York State Senate. In The Notorious John Morrissey, James C. Nicholson explores the improbable life of the man who brought Thoroughbred racing back to prominence in the United States. Though few of his contemporaries did more to develop the commercialization of sports in America, Morrissey's colorful background has prevented him from getting the attention he deserves. This entertaining and long-overdue biography finally does justice to his astounding rags-to-riches story while exploring an intriguing chapter in the history of horse racing.
Book Synopsis Thoroughbred Nation by : Natalie A. Zacek
Download or read book Thoroughbred Nation written by Natalie A. Zacek and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2024-09-09 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the colonial era to the beginning of the twentieth century, horse racing was by far the most popular sport in America. Great numbers of Americans and overseas visitors flocked to the nation’s tracks, and others avidly followed the sport in both general-interest newspapers and specialized periodicals. Thoroughbred Nation offers a detailed yet panoramic view of thoroughbred racing in the United States, following the sport from its origins in colonial Virginia and South Carolina to its boom in the Lower Mississippi Valley, and then from its post–Civil War rebirth in New York City and Saratoga Springs to its opulent mythologization of the “Old South” at Louisville’s Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby. Natalie A. Zacek introduces readers to an unforgettable cast of characters, from “plungers” such as Virginia plantation owner William Ransom Johnson (known as the “Napoleon of the Turf”) and Wall Street financier James R. Keene (who would wager a fortune on the outcome of a single competition) to the jockeys, trainers, and grooms, most of whom were African American. While their names are no longer known, their work was essential to the sport. Zacek also details the careers of remarkable, though scarcely remembered, horses, whose achievements made them as famous in their day as more recent equine celebrities such as Seabiscuit or Secretariat. Based upon exhaustive research in print and visual sources from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States, Thoroughbred Nation will be of interest both to those who love the sport of horse racing for its own sake and to those who are fascinated by how this pastime reflects and influences American identities.
Book Synopsis The Making of Urban America by : Raymond A. Mohl
Download or read book The Making of Urban America written by Raymond A. Mohl and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-10-03 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The revised and updated third edition of The Making of Urban America includes seven new articles and a richly detailed historiographical essay that discusses the vast urban history literature added to the canon since the publication of the second edition. The authors’ extensively revised introductions and the fifteen reprinted articles trace urban development from the preindustrial city to the twentieth-century city. With emphasis on the social, economic, political, commercial, and cultural aspects of urban history, these essays illustrate the growth and change that created modern-day urban life. Dynamic topics such as technology, immigration and ethnicity, suburbanization, sunbelt cities, urban political history, and planning and housing are examined. The Making of Urban America is the only reader available that covers all of U.S. urban history and that also includes the most recent interpretive scholarship on the subject.
Book Synopsis A Companion to American Sport History by : Steven A. Riess
Download or read book A Companion to American Sport History written by Steven A. Riess and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-03-26 with total page 921 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Companion to American Sport History presents a collection of original essays that represent the first comprehensive analysis of scholarship relating to the growing field of American sport history. Presents the first complete analysis of the scholarship relating to the academic history of American sport Features contributions from many of the finest scholars working in the field of American sport history Includes coverage of the chronology of sports from colonial times to the present day, including major sports such as baseball, football, basketball, boxing, golf, motor racing, tennis, and track and field Addresses the relationship of sports to urbanization, technology, gender, race, social class, and genres such as sports biography Awarded 2015 Best Anthology from the North American Society for Sport History (NASSH)
Book Synopsis The Cambridge Companion to Horseracing by : Rebecca Cassidy
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Horseracing written by Rebecca Cassidy and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-28 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: People have been racing horses for thousands of years, all over the world. Yet horseracing is often presented as an English creation that was exported, unaltered, to the colonies. This Companion investigates the intersection of racing and literature, art, history and finance, casting the sport as the product of cross-class, cosmopolitan and international influences. Chapters on racing history and the origins of the thoroughbred demonstrate how the gift of a fast horse could forge alliances between nations, and the extent to which international power dynamics can be traced back to racetracks and breeding sheds. Leading scholars and journalists draw on original research and firsthand experience to create portraits of the racetracks of Newmarket, Kentucky, the Curragh, and Hunter Valley, exposing readers to new racing frontiers in China and Dubai as well. A unique resource for fans and scholars alike, reopening essential questions regarding the legacy and importance of horseracing today.
Book Synopsis Baseball Meets the Law by : Ed Edmonds
Download or read book Baseball Meets the Law written by Ed Edmonds and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2017-03-04 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Baseball and law have intersected since the primordial days. In 1791, a Pittsfield, Massachusetts, ordinance prohibited ball playing near the town's meeting house. Ball games on Sundays were barred by a Pennsylvania statute in 1794. In 2015, a federal court held that baseball's exemption from antitrust laws applied to franchise relocations. Another court overturned the conviction of Barry Bonds for obstruction of justice. A third denied a request by rooftop entrepreneurs to enjoin the construction of a massive video screen at Wrigley Field. This exhaustive chronology traces the effects the law has had on the national pastime, both pro and con, on and off the field, from the use of copyright to protect not only equipment but also "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" to frequent litigation between players and owners over contracts and the reserve clause. The stories of lawyers like Kenesaw Mountain Landis and Branch Rickey are entertainingly instructive.
Download or read book Counterpunch written by Meg Frisbee and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2016-05-02 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Boxing was popular in the American West long before Las Vegas became its epicenter. However, not everyone in the region was a fan. Counterpunch examines how the sport’s meteoric rise in popularity in the West ran concurrently with a growing backlash among Progressive Era social reformers who saw boxing as barbaric. These tensions created a morality war that pitted state officials against city leaders, boxing promoters against social reformers, and fans against religious groups. Historian Meg Frisbee focuses on several legendary heavyweight prizefights of the period and the protests they inspired to explain why western geography, economy, and culture ultimately helped the sport’s supporters defeat its detractors. A fascinating look at early American boxing, Counterpunch showcases fighters such as “Gentleman” Jim Corbett, Bob Fitzsimmons, and Jack Johnson, the first African American heavyweight champ, and it provides an entertaining way to understand both the growth of the American West and the history of this popular—and controversial—sport.
Book Synopsis Animals in the City by : Laura A. Reese
Download or read book Animals in the City written by Laura A. Reese and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents interdisciplinary research to examine the ongoing debates around nonhuman animals in urban spaces. It explores how we can better appreciate and accommodate animals in the city, while also exploring the ecological, health, ethical, and cultural implications of the same. The book addresses seven interrelated themes such as blurred boundaries between the human and the nonhuman, the right of nonhuman species to the city, interactions between the human and nonhuman animals, the fabric of urban space, human and nonhuman complex systems, and collective welfare that forms the basis of a transspecies urban theory. It explains how a holistic understanding of the city requires that these blurred boundaries are acknowledged and critically examined. Chapters analytically consider the need to bring interspecies relationships to the fore to tackle questions of legitimacy and who has the "right" to the city. These also consider important intersections between the economic, political, social, and cultural aspects of the urban experience. The research contained in this book focuses on the development of an urban theory that would eradicate the divide between humans and other species in cities, and it depicts nonhuman animals as social actors that have voices within urban spaces. With global insights on human–animal relationships in a contemporary context, this book will be useful reading for scholars and students of urban studies, animal sciences, animal law, animals and public policy, anthropology, and environmental studies who are interested in the study of animals in cities.
Download or read book Greater Gotham written by Mike Wallace and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-04 with total page 1195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this utterly immersive volume, Mike Wallace captures the swings of prosperity and downturn, from the 1898 skyscraper-driven boom to the Bankers' Panic of 1907, the labor upheaval, and violent repression during and after the First World War. Here is New York on a whole new scale, moving from national to global prominence -- an urban dynamo driven by restless ambition, boundless energy, immigrant dreams, and Wall Street greed. Within the first two decades of the twentieth century, a newly consolidated New York grew exponentially. The city exploded into the air, with skyscrapers jostling for prominence, and dove deep into the bedrock where massive underground networks of subways, water pipes, and electrical conduits sprawled beneath the city to serve a surging population of New Yorkers from all walks of life. New York was transformed in these two decades as the world's second-largest city and now its financial capital, thriving and sustained by the city's seemingly unlimited potential. Wallace's new book matches its predecessor in pure page-turning appeal and takes America's greatest city to new heights.
Book Synopsis Horse Racing the Chicago Way by : Steven A. Riess
Download or read book Horse Racing the Chicago Way written by Steven A. Riess and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2022-06-08 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chicago may seem a surprising choice for studying thoroughbred racing, especially since it was originally a famous harness racing town and did not get heavily into thoroughbred racing until the 1880s. However, Chicago in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was second only to New York as a center of both thoroughbred racing and off-track gambling. Horse Racing the Chicago Way shines a light on this fascinating, complicated history, exploring the role of political influence and class in the rise and fall of thoroughbred racing; the business of racing; the cultural and social significance of racing; and the impact widespread opposition to gambling in Illinois had on the sport. Riess also draws attention to the nexus that existed between horse racing, politics, and syndicate crime, as well as the emergence of neighborhood bookmaking, and the role of the national racing wire in Chicago. Taking readers from the grandstands of Chicago’s finest tracks to the underworld of crime syndicates and downtown poolrooms, Riess brings to life this understudied era of sports history.
