In this revised and expanded edition of Bloodball, J. G. Van Tine probes the mind-set that dominates media sport. By uncovering covert games, tactics and payoffs, he redefines the hero worship that vaunts a tiny minority while luring the majority into conflicted passivity. As the sporting audience rarely glimpses those who run the corporations and own the teams, Bloodball attempts to ease this relation by revealing how and why the media disguise corporate control and power plays, among them the History Fob, Getting Wa-Wa, Branding, and Your Heart Belongs to Daddy.

In post-revolutionary France of the early 1830's, the elite combats dissent and opposition through a network of censors, informers and unofficial deputies. As modes of surveillance, the police also set up businesses, including brothels, publishers, cabarets and a clearing house for stolen paintings, enterprises that affect not only the targeted population but entertainers, actors and authors, among them Balzac and Henri Beyle (pen name Stendhal). Apart from risking arrest while his family's fortunes are sinking, Balzac pursues wealth through enterprises that increase his debts, one being his...