Description: What are boys like? Who is the creature inhabiting the twilight zone between the perils of the Oedipus complex and the Strum und Drang of puberty? In With the Boys, Gary Alan Fine examines the American male preadolescent by studying the world of Little League baseball. Drawings on three years of firsthand observation of five Little Leagues, Fine describes how, through organized sport and its accompanying activities, boys learn to play, work, and generally be "men."
Brief description: Gary Alan Fine is a visiting scholar at Emory University in Atlanta and the James E. Johnson Professor Emeritus at Northwestern University. He is the author of Fair Share: Senior Activism, Tiny Publics, and the Culture of Resistance, published by the University of Chicago Press.