Scarecrow Press
Pages: 238
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9¼
978-0-8108-9173-9 • Hardback • September 2013 • $122.00 • (£94.00)
978-0-8108-9174-6 • eBook • September 2013 • $115.50 • (£89.00)
Timothy J. Ashton is assistant professor of Spanish literatures and cultures at the University of South Carolina Aiken.
As he suggests in this book's subtitle, Ashton divides his study into three parts, treating the role soccer has played in Spanish political history, Spanish literature, and Spanish cinema. Though the first part, 'Tackling Spain's National Identity Crisis,' is based on a dated, shallow historiography and is unsatisfactory, the subsequent two parts offer much of merit. . . . By creating a straw man out of intellectual titans like Jorge Luis Borges, who was unabashed in his soccer antipathies, Ashton seeks to proclaim the legitimacy of kick-lit and kick-flicks as modern genres while also demonstrating how soccer has long been a subject of enthusiasm in the writings of some of Spain's cultural elite. Ashton's primary informant is Argentine-born soccer champion Jorge Valdano, who not only was a forward and general manager for Real Madrid (a Madrid soccer club) but is also a kick-lit author and very clearly an ambassador of Spanish soccer who crosses many of Spain's class and cultural demarcations. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; general readers.
— Choice Reviews