Many Americans know more about the stadiums that loom over their cityscapes or college campuses than they do about any other aspect of the nations geography. Stadiums serve as iconic monuments of urban and university identities. Indeed, the power of sport in modern American culture has produced sportscapeslandscapes literally shaped by their devotion to athletic competition. Curiously, given the importance of the secular cathedrals in American culture, historians have paid little attention to these edifices. The Rise of Stadiums in the Modern United States: Cathedrals of Sport seeks to remedy that oversight. This book will analyze stadiums from a variety of perspectives, paying special attention to the links between the built environment in which Americans watch and play games and the larger social environments that the nations sporting practices inhabit. The Rise of Stadiums in the Modern United States: Cathedrals of Sport explores the role of stadiums in shaping urban identities, determining the economics of intercollegiate athletics, influencing local and national politics.

This book was previously published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.