I am a lifelong sports fan. I learned the language of Baseball probably before I could even walk and the language of Basketball soon thereafter. I’m fluent in American Football and can make myself understood in Hockey. I also have varying degrees of fluency in a number of the “minor” sports here in the US, such as Bowling (though I’m not as fluent in speaking Candlepin or Duckpin as I am in the more conventional Tenpin most of us are familiar with.

In their book Gaming the World, Andrei Markovits and Lars Rensmann use the languages of sports to offer a unique perspective on globalization. This is not a book that will be used to settle arguments on sports performances at the neighborhood pub. However, I can see it being used as the foundation of a Sociology class on Sports in Society, as part of a Cultural Anthropology class, or as part of an elective Political Science course work. (in all cases with some necessary supplemental information)