The Age of Football: The Global Game in the Twenty-first Century Audiobook (Free)

‘Magnificent . Goldblatt is the doyen of sports activities historians and brings to this accounts his forensic and telling eye for detail’

Mail on Sunday

The epic exploration of society, politics, and economics in the twenty-first century through the prism of football, by the critically acclaimed author of The Ball is Round.

‘David Goldblatt isn’t merely the very best football historian writing today, he’s possibly the best there has ever been’

Dominic Sandbrook, Weekend Times

In the twenty-first century about The Age of Football: The Global Game in the Twenty-first Century football is first. Initial among sports themselves, but it now commands the allegiance, curiosity and engagement of more people in more areas than any other trend. In the three most populous countries on the planet earth – China, India and the United States where just two decades ago football existed within the periphery of society – it has arrived for good. Nations, individuals and neighbourhoods across the globe imagine and invent themselves through playing and following game.

In The Age of Football, David Goldblatt charts football’s global social ascent, its economic transformation and deep politicisation, consuming prison football in Uganda and amputee football in Angola, the role of football fans in the Arab Spring, the footballing presidencies of Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Turkey’s Recep Erdogan, China’s declared intention to both host and win the World Cup by 2050, as well as the FIFA corruption scandal.

Following intersection of the overall game with money, force and identity, like no previous sports activities historian, Goldblatt’s sweeping story can be remarkable in its scope, breathtaking in its depth of knowledge, and it is a brilliantly original perspective of the twenty-first century. It’s the accounts of how soccer has arrive to define every facet of our interpersonal, economic and social lives and at what cost, shaping who we think we are and who we want to be.