* List of Illustrations * Prologue * Acknowledgments * One "The White Man's Burden" Football and Empire, 1860s-1919 * Two The Africanization of Football, 1920s-1940s * Three Making Nations in Late Colonial Africa, 1940s-1964 * Four Nationhood, Pan-Africanism, and Football after Independence * Five Football Migration to Europe since the 1930s * Six The Privatization of Football, 1980s to Recent Times * Epilogue South Africa 2010: The World Cup Comes to Africa * Notes * Bibliography * Series Editors' Note * Index
From Accra and Algiers to Zanzibar and Zululand, Africans have wrested control of soccer from the hands of Europeans, and through the rise of different playing styles, the rituals of spectatorship, and the presence of magicians and healers, have turned soccer into a distinctively African activity.African
Peter Alegi is an associate professor of history at Michigan State University and the author of Laduma! Soccer, Politics, and Society in South Africa. He is an editorial board member of the International Journal of African Historical Studies and book review editor of Soccer and Society.
“A compact but thorough and informative account of the sport’s
absorption and evolution across the African continent…. An ideal
reader for undergraduate and graduate courses as well as for those
individuals curious about the rise of football across Africa.”
*Notes & Records*
“Alegi’s concise and ingenious book is a timely reminder about the
impact African players have had on global football and an
affirmation of Africa’s mounting stature as a football powerhouse….
Alegi writes in a language that is accessible to non-specialists
and casual readers…. For academia, instructors teaching
undergraduate courses about global sports or sports in Africa could
assign the book or selected chapters to students, who most likely
will appreciate the material for its informative strength, brevity,
and lucidity.”
*African Studies Quarterly*
“No account of African soccer would be complete without reference
to the players themselves, and Alegi skilfully describes the
migratory process that brought African players to Europe from the
1930s to the present day. He touches on issues such as racism and
exploitation, but also on the success of such pioneering players as
Arthur Warton, Ben Barek, Roger Milla, and George Weah.”
*African Affairs*
“Nobody understands the background to African soccer better than
the Italian-American historian Peter Alegi. This World Cup is his
moment. His African Soccerscapes crams daunting erudition, gleaned
over many years of study of African football, into under 200 pages
of history.”
*Financial Times*
“Via these outstanding works (Laduma! and African Soccerscapes),
Alegi has placed African soccer on firm historiographical footing,
while also popularizing a subject about which little was previously
known beyond Africa’s borders.”
*African Studies Review*
“Alegi creatively and effectively uses soccer to tell the story of
European domination and exploitation of Africa. Yet, he also shows
us how Africans came to embrace the game imposed on them, and made
it something distinctly African.”
*International Journal of African Historical Studies*
“Alegi has produced a cogent and absorbing history of soccer in
Africa.”
*Histoire Sociale / Social History*
“(Alegi’s) latest book, African Soccerscapes: How a Continent
Changed the World’s Game, is a must-buy. An astutely comprehensive
overview of over 150 years of soccer in Africa, it contains many
engrossing examples of just how much the sport has always been more
than just a game across the African continent…. I cannot recommend
this book highly enough.”
“Peter Alegi’s African Soccerscapes is simply the best available
overview of the history (of African soccer). Concise and to the
point, you'll be through it before the round of 16 begins, having
covered all the basics without forgetting the pleasures and the
passions that animate African football.”
*The Observer*
“African Soccerscapes…provides a great deal of nourishment for both
casual observers and passionate followers of the game, in Africa
and around the world. However, do not think that it is a book about
soccer alone. It is a book about globalization, power, politics,
economics, colonization, neocolonialism, media, and the dreams of
millions of people around the world.”
*Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies*
“Few soccer books can offer the African perspective on the game as
Alegi’s does here, taking a historical and economic approach to
relate how British and French colonizers introduced soccer in
Africa and how soccer has evolved there…. This will not be the most
popular soccer book of the summer, but it's one of the more
important ones.”
*Library Journal*
“This slim volume, from a scholar fast developing a reputation as a
leading expert on the history of African soccer, has hallmarks of a
high level research monograph but transcends the genre with its
impeccably researched trawl through the development of the game on
the continent…. (A)n important book, academic and authoritative in
tone, and one that leaves the reader in no doubt of football’s
importance in forging African identity and greatly enriching the
global sport as a whole.”
*thetwounfortunates blog*
“Peter Alegi’s brilliant and rich exploration of the history of
football in Africa is long overdue and fills an enormous gap. His
fluid and absorbing narration is a testimony to the centrality of
the ‘beautiful game’ in everyday life on the continent.
Soccerscapes is an academically rigorous book that vividly
reverberates with Alegi’s passion for Africa and for football, a
game to which he has devoted so much of his life.”
“Given the huge interest in the 2010 World Cup, many will be
looking for something to contextualize the African soccer scene.
African Soccerscapes is excellent, with a clear framework and
progression, and lots of interesting stories.”
“By putting the game in Africa in social, political, and historical
context African Soccerscapes serves as a valuable reminder to be
skeptical of simple narratives about South Africa 2010…. It is all
much more complicated, and much more interesting, than that.”
*Pitch Invasion: Exploring the Global Game*
“In this wonderfully researched and richly textured narrative,
Alegi tells the vital story of how football transformed Africa and
Africa transformed football during the 20th century. The book is a
must-read for all those
wishing to gain a greater understanding of the past, and future, of
the global game.”
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