| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.4

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Athletic Crusade: Sport and American Cultural Imperialism. By Gerald R. Gems. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006. 233 pp. $39.95, ISBN 0-8032-2216-5.)
It is a long-standing assumption that sport was a significant component of imperial ventures across the globe in the past two centuries. Along with the famous "three Cs," Christianity, culture, and commerce, sport has been used as a tool in the civilizing process, conveying central values of the imperial state. In the United States that mission was also used internally to lift so-called inferior types to the higher levels of wasp civilization.	1
In this highly ambitious interpretive essay, Gerald R. Gems, professor of health and physical education at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois, explores the role sport played in the growth and development of the American empire. The focus is on the American role in Asia, the Pacific, and the Caribbean, and the values sport promoted in several subjected societies. Gems asks: "Did those cultures accept, reject, resist, adopt, or adapt such practices to their inherent value system? How did those cultures change as a result? Did hybrid or alternative cultures evolve from such cultural interplay? Was the process volatile or relatively harmonious?" (p. 16).	. . .

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