Description:
Donald Trump's love of golf adds him to a long line of presidents who have a close association with sports. Indeed, golf might just be the leading presidential pastime, ever since William Howard Taft was photographed strutting the links against the advice of his predecessor Theodore Roosevelt. And it was Roosevelt, more than any president, who set the standard for linking the nation's top job to its favourite physical pastimes.
Starting with Roosevelt's significant role in linking the presidency with fandom, advocacy of, and active participation in sports, this volume traces how occupants of the White House continued to develop these connections in various guises across the following century. Though historians have certainly not ignored such associations, the variety of case studies represented here provides a wider and more multidisciplinary selection of standpoints from which to assess the interactions between sports and the presidency than ever before.
Brief description: Adam Burns is Head of Politics at Brighton College, UK. He is the author of American Imperialism: The Territorial Expansion of the United States, 1783-2013 (Edinburgh University Press, 2017), The United States: Reuniting a Nation, 1865-1920 (Routledge, 2020) and William Howard Taft and the Philippines: A Blueprint for Empire (University of Tennessee Press, 2020). He has also authored several peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century US, including for the journal Sport History Review.
Review Quotes: [This] book ticks all the boxes and delivers what its subtitle promises. It persuasively shows that sports and the American presidency are very much intertwined, and that sports can provide a useful lens to study politics.--Abhishek Khajuria, Jawaharlal Nehru University "International Affairs"