This is more than a description of the imperial spread of public school games: it considers hegemony and patronage, ideals and idealism, educational values and aspirations, cultural assimilation and adaptation and the dissemination of the moralistic ideology of athleticism.

Since the mid-nineteenth century, the United States has used sport as a vehicle for spreading its influence and extending its power, especially in the Western Hemisphere and around the Pacific Rim, but also in every corner of the rest of the world. Through modern sport in general, and through American pastimes such as baseball, basketball and the American variant of football in particular, the U.S. has sought to Americanize the globe's masses in a long series of both domestic and foreign campaigns. Sport played roles in American programs of cultural, economic, and political expansion. Sport...