A study of the educational opportunities offered after WW1 to Amer. soldiers of the Amer. Expeditionary Forces (AEF). Some stayed in Europe and studied art, attended classes at the Sorbonne, took medical courses at London's Fellowship of Med., read law at the Inns of Court, enrolled in veterinary classes at the Univ. of Edinburgh, and studied French culture and language at numerous French univ. and inst. About 10,000 men were involved in these programs. In addition, 10,000 soldier-students attended the AEF's own univ. at Beaune. For a few months in the spring of 1919, this univ. was the largest in the English-speaking world. Other educational opportunities of various sorts were made available to virtually every soldier in the AEF. Illustrations.

Drawing on newspaper accounts, college yearbooks and the recollections of veterans, this book examines the impact of World War I on sports in the U.S. As young men entered the military in large numbers, many colleges initially considered suspending athletics but soon turned to the idea of using sports to build morale and physical readiness. Recruits, mostly in their twenties, ended up playing more baseball and football than they would have in peacetime. Though most college athletes volunteered for military duty, others replaced them so that the reduction of competition was not severe. Pugilism gained participants as several million men learned how to box.

Is the face of American baseball throughout the world that of goodwill ambassador or ugly American? Has baseball crafted its own image or instead been at the mercy of broader forces shaping our society and the globe? The Empire Strikes Out gives us the sweeping story of how baseball and America are intertwined in the export of “the American way.” From the Civil War to George W. Bush and the Iraq War, we see baseball's role in developing the American empire, first at home and then beyond our shores. And from Albert Spalding and baseball's first World Tour to Bud Selig and the World Baseball Classic, we witness the globalization of America's national pastime and baseball's role in spreading the American dream. Besides describing baseball's frequent and often surprising connections to America's presence around the world, Elias assesses the effects of this relationship both on our foreign policies and on the sport itself and asks whether baseball can play a positive role or rather only reinforce America's dominance around the globe. Like Franklin Foer in How Soccer Explains the World, Elias is driven by compelling stories, unusual events, and unique individuals. His seamless integration of original research and compelling analysis makes this a baseball book that's about more than just sports.

The Great War has been largely ignored by historians of sport. However sport was an integral part of cultural conditioning into both physiological and psychological military efficiency in the decades leading up to it. It is time to acknowledge that the Great War also had an influence on sport in post-war European culture. Both are neglected topics. Sport, Militarism and the Great War deals with four significant aspects of the relationship between sport and war before, during and immediately after the 1914-1918 conflict. First, it explores the creation and consolidation of the cult of martial heroism and chivalric self-sacrifice in the pre-war era. Second, it examines the consequences of the mingling of soldiers from various nations on later sport. Third, it considers the role of the Great War in the transformation of the leisure of the masses. Finally, it examines the links between war, sport and male socialisation. The Great War contributed to a redefinition of European masculinity in the post-war period. The part sport played in this redefinition receives attention. Sport, Militarism and the Great War is in two parts: the Continental (Part I) and the "Anglo-Saxon" (Part II). No study has adopted this bilateral approach to date. Thus, in conception and execution, it is original. With its originality of content and the approaching centenary of the advent of the Great War in 2014, it is anticipated that the book will capture a wide audience. This book was originally published as a special issue of The International Journal of the History of Sport.

With the centennial of the First World War rapidly approaching, historian and bibliographer James T. Controvich offers in The United States in World War I: A Bibliographic Guide the most comprehensive, up-to-date reference bibliography yet published. Organized by subject, this bibliography includes the full range of sources: vintage publications of the time, books, pamphlets, periodical titles, theses, dissertations, and archival sources held by federal and state organizations, as well as those in public and private hands, including historical societies and museums. As Controvich’s bibliographic accounting makes clear, there were many facets of World War I that remain virtually unknown to this day. Throughout, Controvich’s bibliography tracks the primary sources that tell each of these stories—and many others besides—during this tense period in American history. Each entry lists the author, title, place of publication, publisher, date of publication, and page count as well as descriptive information concerning illustrations, plates, ports, maps, diagrams, and plans. The armed forces section carries additional information on rosters, awards, citations, and killed and wounded in action lists. The United States in World War I: A Bibliographic Guide is an ideal research tool for students and scholars of World War I and American history.

Fit for America is at once an intellectual biography of Major John L. Griffith, one of the preeminent intercollegiate athletics administrators of the twenti­eth century, and an in-depth look at how athletics shaped national military preparedness in a time of war and anticommunist sentiment. Lindaman traces Griffith’s forty-year career, one that spanned both world wars and included his appointment as the first Big Ten commissioner from 1922 until 1945. Griffith also served as NCAA president in the 1930s and later became the secretary-treasurer during World War II. Throughout his career, he worked tirelessly to advance the role and importance of collegiate sports on a regional and national level. In an era of heightened fears of com­munism, Griffith saw intercollegiate athletics as a way to prepare young men to become fit, disciplined military recruits. Griffith also founded his own publi­cation, the Athletic Journal, in 1922 in which he published opinion pieces and solicited the opinions of other leading coaches and administrators nationwide. Through these pages, Lindaman explores not only Griffith’s philosophy but also the emergence of a coaching and athletic administration network. Draw­ing on voluminous primary source material and the many writings Griffith left behind, Fit for America brings long-overdue attention to a figure who was in­strumental in shaping the world of American intercollegiate sports.

Jim Leeke tells the little-known history of Grover Cleveland Alexander and fellow athletes in the 342nd Field Artillery Regiment during the Great War.

Two weeks after the United States officially entered World War I, Irish American "Bricklayer Bill" Kennedy won the Boston Marathon wearing his stars-and-stripes bandana, rallying the crowd of patriotic spectators. Kennedy became an American hero and, with outrageous stories of his riding the rails and sleeping on pool tables, a racing legend whose name has since appeared in almost every book written on the Boston Marathon. When journalist Patrick Kennedy and historian Lawrence Kennedy unearthed their uncle's unpublished memoir, they discovered a colorful character who lived a tumultuous life, beyond his multiple marathons. The bricklayer survived typhoid fever, a five-story fall, auto and train accidents, World War action, Depression-era bankruptcy, decades of back-breaking work, and his own tendency to tipple. In many ways, Bill typified the colorful, newly emerging culture and working-class ethic of competitive long-distance running before it became a professionalized sport. Bricklayer Bill takes us back to another time, when bricklayers, plumbers, and printers could take the stage as star athletes.

Reveals how the artist recorded his memories of the American railroad and the traveling circus as landscapes.