{"product_id":"inventing-the-boston-game-football-soccer-and-the-origins-of-a-national-myth-9781625348425","title":"Inventing the Boston Game: Football, Soccer, and the Origins of a National Myth","description":"\u003cp\u003e On Boston Common stands a monument dedicated to the Oneida Football Club. It honors the site where, in the 1860s, sixteen boys played what was then called the \"Boston game\"--an early version of football in the United States. The boys were largely the sons of upper-class Boston Brahmins, and they lived through the transformative periods of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Gilded Age. Later as they grew old, in the 1920s, a handful of them orchestrated a series of commemorative events about their boyhood game. Benefitting from elite networks developed through the city's social and educational institutions, including Harvard University, they donated artifacts (such as an oddly shaped, battered black ball) to museums, deposited self-penned histories into libraries and archives, and erected bronze and stone memorials, all to elevate themselves as the inventors of American football (and later, by extension, soccer). But was this origin story of what, by then, had become one of America's favorite games as straightforward as they made it seem or a myth-making hoax? \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In \u003ci\u003eInventing the Boston Game\u003c\/i\u003e, Kevin Tallec Marston and Mike Cronin investigate the history of the Oneida Football Club and reveal what really happened. In a compelling, well told narrative that is informed by sports history, Boston history, and the study of memory, they posit that these men engaged in self-memorialization to reinforce their elite cultural status during a period of tremendous social and economic change, and particularly increased immigration. This exploration of the Club's history provides fascinating insight into how and why origin stories are created in the first place. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eKevin Tallec Marston\u003c\/b\u003e is Research Fellow at CIES (Centre International d'Etude du Sport \/ International Center for Sports Studies) and Visiting Researcher and Lecturer at the International Centre for Sports History and Culture at De Montfort University. His writings on sports have appeared in edited collections and journals such as \u003ci\u003eContemporary European History\u003c\/i\u003e and the \u003ci\u003eInternational Sports Law Journal\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eMike Cronin\u003c\/b\u003e is Academic Director, Centre for Irish Programmes at Boston College, Dublin. His publications include \u003ci\u003eSport: A Very Short Introduction\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of Massachusetts Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50869559525650,"sku":"9781625348425","price":36.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_0cd40b5d-d7ae-4f4a-aa3f-381f4b5b6ef5.jpg?v=1737761656","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/inventing-the-boston-game-football-soccer-and-the-origins-of-a-national-myth-9781625348425","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}