The Making of Les Bleus traces the Fifth Republic’s quest to create elite athletes in two global team sports, football and basketball, primarily at the youth level. While the objective of this mission was to improve performances at international competitions, such programs were quickly seized upon to help ease domestic issues and tensions. The onset of the Cold War forced countries of all sizes to rethink their relevancy. A country’s ability to exert “soft power,” or influence others through the cultural sphere, became more important. Sport was but one way through which to do so. The extent to which France harnessed the athletic domain was unprecedented among other West European nations. In France, sport, particularly at the youth level, was used to cultivate soft power internationally, to transmit republican ideals of democracy and fair play to the youth, and to examine and create a modern, post-colonial French identity in a globalizing world. The French sought to find a “third way” in sports, much in the way that it sought to create an alternative between the diplomatic policies of Washington and Moscow. Fifth Republic sports systems placed the training of elite athletes under the state. At the same time, private clubs also played an important role in developing players to serve the republic in elite competition. Examination of the republic’s quest to create elite athletes provides perspective on how France coped with and adapted to the post-1945 world. In what ways did the country reconfigure its global role? How did domestic changes impact society? In a globalizing, post-colonial world, how has France come to terms with the past? In what ways has France sought to create a new “French” identity? This story helps answer such questions. The history of the state’s cooption of youth sports forms a compelling tale and serves as a prism through which to investigate the larger history of France, the evolution of society, the impacts of the media revolution, and the government’s mission of public health. It underscores just how much things have changed—yet still remained the same. You can find a podcast interview with the author about this book at: http://newbooksinsports.com/2013/11/14/lindsay-krasnoff-the-making-of-les-bleus-sport-in-france-1958-2010-lexington-books-2012/

When France both hosted and won the World Cup in 1998, the face of its star player, Zinedine Zidane, the son of Algerian immigrants, was projected onto the Arc de Triomphe. During the 2006 World Cup finals, Zidane stunned the country by ending his spectacular career with an assault on an Italian player. In Soccer Empire, Laurent Dubois illuminates the connections between empire and sport by tracing the story of World Cup soccer, from the Cup’s French origins in the 1930s to Africa and the Caribbean and back again. As he vividly recounts the lives of two of soccer’s most electrifying players, Zidane and his outspoken teammate, Lilian Thuram, Dubois deepens our understanding of the legacies of empire that persist in Europe and brilliantly captures the power of soccer to change the nation and the world.

The National Basketball Association (NBA), founded over 75 years ago, is staging a 21st century takeover. Watched in 215 countries and territories worldwide, and with nearly one in three players born and trained overseas, it is no longer just about America. In this book, Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff shows how basketball's global takeover could not have happened without France, exploring its interactions with the United States and colonial legacies with francophone Africa and the Afro-Caribbean. Taking us back to the very beginnings of basketball, she shows how remnants of empire have shaped the game. Asking how and why so many French basketball players have joined the NBA and WNBA, Basketball Empire explores what this has meant for the league and the players themselves. Going behind the scenes, it follows the generations of men and women who, since 1950, have followed their passion for the game to create a basketball breeding ground. Including interviews with players, sports journalists, league directors and coaches past and present, it uncovers the transatlantic networks and complex Franco-American relations that have nurtured a mutual exchange of culture, technical skill and knowledge. These first-hand accounts, supported by media and government archives, show how these forms of sports diplomacy sowed the seeds of a basketball revolution and helped make the NBA a global cultural entity. Arguing that basketball is deeply indebted to France's colonial history and close, albeit complicated, relationship with the United States this book is about the creation of a cultural empire, and shows how sports can be the vehicle to build bridges between nations.

Hare traces the gradual evolution of traditional French football values and considers the impact of new and controversial business practices. He asks what is peculiarly French about French football, and what does football tell us about France?.

How religion, gender, and urban sociality are expressed in and mediated via television drama in Kinshasa is the focus of this ethnographic study. Influenced by Nigerian films and intimately related to the emergence of a charismatic Christian scene, these teleserials integrate melodrama, conversion narratives, Christian songs, sermons, testimonies, and deliverance rituals to produce commentaries on what it means to be an inhabitant of Kinshasa.

The Franchise series explores these athletes’ stories, taking readers into the players’ lives on and off the field of play. Learn about your favorite athletes’ early days, the challenges they’ve overcome to reach the top, and the qualities that make them truly incomparable.

A Soldier of the Legion by C.M. Williamson is about a determined soldier who must fight hard to protect the ones he loves. Excerpt: "It was the great ball of the season at Fort Ellsworth. For a special reason it had begun unusually late; but, though the eighth dance was on, the great event of the evening had not happened yet. Until that should happen, the rest, charming though it might be, was a mere curtain-raiser to keep men amused before the first act of the play. The band of the —th was playing the "Merry Widow" waltz, still, a favorite at the fort, and only one of the officers was not dancing. All the others—young, middle-aged, and even elderly—were gliding more or less gracefully, more or less happily, over the waxed floor of the big, white-walled, flag-draped hall where Fort Ellsworth had its concerts, theatricals, small hops, and big balls."

Nonfiction films about sports have been around for decades, yet few scholarly articles have been published on these works. In Identity and Myth in Sports Documentaries, editors Zachary Ingle and David M. Sutera have assembled a collection of essays that show how myth and identity--national, religious, ethnic, and racial--are constructed, perpetuated, or questioned in documentaries produced in the United States, France, Australia, Germany, and Japan. This collection is divided into three sections. "American Identity and Myth" contains essays on consumerism, religion in sports, and post-9/11 America. "Race and Ethnicity" examines the ways in which African American, Mexican American, and Jewish identity are portrayed in the documentaries under discussion. "Global Perspectives" features films and TV series produced outside of the United States or those that provide perspectives on the international sport scene. Spanning several decades, the landmark documentaries discussed in this volume include Hoop Dreams, The Endless Summer, The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, Olympia, and Tokyo Olympiad and address such subjects as baseball, football, basketball, boxing, soccer, surfing, and the Olympics. The essays pose such questions as "How are notions of the American dream involved in athletes' aspirations?", "How do media texts from Australia or France construct Australian and French identity, respectively?", and "How did filmmakers such as Leni Riefenstahl, Kon Ichikawa, and Bud Greenspan infuse their Olympic documentaries with national ideology despite being intended for an international audience?" By tackling these subjects, Identity and Myth in Sports Documentaries is an intriguing read for scholars, students, and the general public alike.

Remember when Zinédine Zidane lifted the World Cup in 1998? Kylian Mbappé doesn't. The forward wasn't born when the French team first became world champions. But it was Mbappé's unique talent that helped France reach the summit of world football once again in 2018, erasing years of failure, rancour and shame. For Les Bleus, the road between these two highs was blighted by bitterly painful lows. Zidane's headbutt; a players' strike; infighting and recriminations; even sex scandals and blackmail. Mbappé witnessed it all as he honed his prodigious talent in the banlieues of Paris, and his story embodies France's journey from disaster to triumph. In Sacré Bleu, Matthew Spiro traces the rise, fall and rise again of Les Bleus through the lens of Kylian Mbappé. Featuring a foreword by Arsène Wenger and interviews with leading figures in French football, Spiro asks what went wrong for France and what, ultimately, went right.

Featuring the thoughts of more than 180 players who have represented Scotland since the very first Test match in 1871 all the way through to the present day, Behind the Thistle gives a unique insight into the drama and emotion of playing for Scotland in that most rarefied of environments – Test match rugby. In this exhaustively research tome, David Barnes and Peter Burns provide inside access to more than 150 years of private moments in the changing room, on tour, on the training ground, during the tumultuous heat of battle itself, and lift the lid on numerous post-match antics. This is the story of what it is really like to play for Scotland, revealing the sacrifices and joys experienced by those who have shed blood, sweat and tears in pursuit of glory in the navy blue jersey.