''The Invention of The Beautiful Game: Football and the Making of Modern Brazil'' is a book by

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

Gregg Bocketti published by the University of Florida Press in 2016. The book examines “the changes in Brazilian football from the era of Charles Miller and the sportsmen to the consolidation of the ideas of the beautiful game and of Brazil’s ownership of the game, the transition from foot-ball to futebol.”

Synopsis

In the book, the author links football to larger historical themes of contemporary

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, and further divides into four chapters that each focuses on separate time frames in the perspective of race, class, region, gender, and nationality. Moreover, through social, cultural, and political lenses, the book explores “Brazilian ideas about the game between 1894 and 1938, and the choices Brazilians made about how to explain football during that period.” In analyzing his collected historical evidences, the author emphasizes several key terms such as professionalization, amateurism, nationalization, popularization, racial exclusivity, and social hierarchies. The book contains 20 illustrative figures and incorporates historical records of prominent football clubs, popular magazines, and sports press as evidence for the author's research.

Critical Reception

Critical reception was generally positive. In a review for the

Hispanic American Historical Review ''The Hispanic American Historical Review'' is a quarterly, peer-reviewed, scholarly journal of Latin American history, the official publication of the Conference on Latin American History, the professional organization of Latin American historia ...

, writer Bernardo Borges Buarque de Hollanda states that he believes the book made an impactful contribution to adding multiple perspectives to Brazilian football through “questioning the nature of a much-used cliché, the beautiful game, which was crucially internalized as part of common sense and by a portion of the national intellectual community.” Moreover, he marks the book's preeminence in taking an unorthodox way of historical research yet still leaving an impressive remark in providing a fresh content with historical objectivity that was not “swayed by the native exoticism or stereotypes.”

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also reviewed the work, with the reviewer stating that the book was “a nuanced and insightful analysis of the contending narratives about the emergence and expansion of football in Brazil, and of how they have produced the powerful nationalist narrative of the futebol nation.” Writing for the ''

Luso-Brazilian Review The ''Luso-Brazilian Review'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal which publishes interdisciplinary scholarship on the Portuguese, Brazilian, and Lusophone African cultures, with an emphasis on literature, history, and the social sciences. Each ...

'', Christopher Gaffney praised the book as "a well-written, expertly researched examination of the ways in which utebolunfolded among and for elites in Rio and São Paulo" while also commenting that Bocketti "neglect dto reinsert football into broader urban and cultural dynamics".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Invention of the Beautiful Game, The History books about Brazil History of association football 2016 non-fiction books Association football books University Press of Florida books