Completely updated and revised, American Sports sets sports in a social-cultural historical context. This highly-acclaimed book offers a reflective, analytical history of American sports from the colonial era to the present. With a focus on the historical relationship between sports, and gender, class, race, ethnicity, religion, and region, this book considers how sports transcend these fundamental categories, and how the experience of sports either as a player or as a fan can bind diverse groups together. This book also looks at how sports at various historical moments have reinforced or challenged the values and behaviors of society