In Contested Fields, Alan McDougall offers a substantial synthesis of international scholarly works. The author pays tribute to fellow researchers who have contributed to the field of sport history and, more largely, the historiography of contemporary history. The result is a brilliant book.The book is divided into eight distinctive chapters: “Migrations,” “Money,” “Competitions,” “Gender,” “Race,” “Spaces,” “Spectators,” and “Confrontations.” At first sight, this segmentation could be seen as disconcerting for historians, who, of course, will sometimes, if not frequently, find repetitions of names or arguments in several different chapters, such as in “Competitions,” “Spaces,” “Spectators,” or “Confrontations.” But it ultimately proves to be a convincing choice. In fact, McDougall is cautious about his selection and never forgets to point out when a topic or illustration occurs twice. Moreover, the use of various examples succeeds in illustrating different levels of playing, administrating, managing, and watching football. This gives visibility to different kinds of players, trainers, and executives and provides readers, even nonhistorian or neophytes in football, a good degree of understanding. In many respects, Contested Fields helps us realize why and how football has achieved such an enduring appeal and has become a global game, which crossed borders through transnational connections.Its eight chapters increasingly explore the complexities of different topics, which enlighten the developments of football history. It contributes to forging a better comprehension about how each actor's or community's attempt for recognition seems to produce everlasting struggles on political, social, economic, and cultural dimensions, be it through the will to play, the search for new spaces, or the planning of events. From this perspective, each chapter compares numerous paths followed worldwide by women and men, regardless of their race or gender, to claim the right to play football at every level against sometimes unlikely opponents.One of the original angles of this book is that it goes beyond simply focusing on elite football and gives opportunities to learn about lesser-known territories. This includes areas in the Faroe Islands, Indonesia, Sierra Leone, and New Zealand, for example. This allows more visibility to still understudied populations or communities, like LBGT players, as well as amateur and lower-standing leagues.A substantial and, obviously, multinational bibliography is dedicated to each chapter and gives recognition to strong specialists of peculiar topics. A FIFA member association appendix also helps locate events in terms of chronological landmarks. It is useful to provide context and to highlight comparisons between events, venues, and actors. Some illustrations turn out to be very moving, such as Primo Levi's testimony or the memory of games played in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Others are dramatic, like the 1989 Hillsborough disaster or the 1979 “Football War” between El Salvador and Honduras (178).While the main part of a whole chapter is dedicated to women, McDougall does not neglect their contribution to football history elsewhere in other parts of Contested Fields. Of course, star players get their due. We can learn about the likes of Di Stefano, Pelé, and Beckham. But their trajectories are largely complemented by a bunch of anonymous players coming from the five continents. It shows the respective contributions of both stars and unknowns to “transnational histories of economic and cultural exchange” (47). Trainers, executives, and politicians are not forgotten either from the different aspects of economic, political, and racial boundaries, which transcended the development of football. Prominent roles of some characters like Joao Havelange, FIFA president since 1974, are underlined in several chapters as well, but they never overshadow the value of more obscure actors. In any event, the study of spaces, spectatorship, money, competitions, and confrontations can never escape the growing influence of television, which has allowed football to become global because of its ability to adapt so successfully to the screen age. This is another central point in the bookIn summary, McDougall recalls the international features of football and reflects on the making and the evolution of modern society. He also invites scholars to address some weaknesses or blindspots of transnational research: amateur levels, both in playing and watching the game; gay athletes; and women. One possible addition could be studies about the history of youth football. However, Contested Fields achieves its goal to deepen our knowledge about a transnational approach of a multifaceted sport characterized by cultural transfers. This book will motivate scholars to pursue transnational studies about football's various topics.
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Dec 31, 2023
Pilwon Lee 
Open Access