ROBERT ELIAS / The Empire Strikes Out: How Baseball Sold U.S. Foreign Policy and Promoted the American Way Abroad

USF professor of law and politics Rob Elias recounts the sweeping story of how baseball has become synonymous with the American dream over the last two centuries, regularly playing part of US “civilizing missions” abroad while promoting American identity and nationalism at home.

Elias combines sharp political analysis and compelling baseball lore to provide a new angle on baseball’s role in the shaping of American politics and charts its relationship to foreign diplomacy from the Revolutionary era to the present day.

Dave Zirin, author of A People’s History of Sports in the United States, writes, “The Empire Strikes Out should be required reading for anyone who considers themselves a baseball fan, or for anyone who has opposed the military misadventures of the past decade. It is an unqualified triumph.” And Roger Kahn, author of The Boys of Summer, The Era, and October Men, notes, “The Empire Strikes Out is a rare and wonderful combination of splendid research and lively writing…the recent internationalization of major-league rosters makes the book particularly timely.”

Visit Elias here, listen to his interview with Michael Krasny here.