Random House, 2004/ Anchor Contemporary, 2005

“Quite simply the top pro football book of all time… beautifully written and well researched…” —Chris Willis, NFL Films

“If there is a better book on the subject, I’m not aware of it.” —David Halberstam

“A gem… Amazing… MacCambridge is a master storyteller.” —Sports Illustrated

It’s difficult to imagine today — when the Super Bowl has become a national holiday and the National Football League is the the country’s dominant sports entity–but pro football was once a ramshackle afterthought on the margins of the American sports landscape. In the span of a single generation in postwar America, the game charted an extraordinary rise in popularity, becoming a smartly managed, keenly marketed sports entertainment colussus whose action is ideally suited to television and whose sensibilities perfectly fit the modern age. This is the story of that seismic change, not just a modern history of pro football, but also a social history of how spectator sports changed in postwar America.