"Focusing on spectator sports and their accompanying issues, tracing their origins, evolution and impact, inside the lines and beyond the boundary, this book offers a thematic history of professional sport and the ingredients that magnetize the world. It tells the stories that matter: from the gladiators of Rome to the runners of Rift Valley via the innovator-missionaries of Rugby School ; from multifaceted British exports to the Americanisation of professionalism and the Indianisation of cricket. Rob Steen traces the development of the sports that capitvate the turnstile millions and the mouse-clicking masses, addressing their key themes and commonalities, from creation myths to match-fixing via race, politics, sexuality and internationalism. Insightful and revelatory, this is an entertaining exploration of spectator sports' intrinsic place in culture and how sport imitates life - and life imitates sport"--Book jacket.