Fair Or Foul

Explains America's love of sport just as it reveals sport's darker side--the influence of big business, corruption, price gouging, political maneuvering, and media grandstanding. Visit our website for sample chapters!

Fair and Foul explores our love of sport, just as it reveals sport’s darker side—the influence of big business, corruption, price gouging, political maneuvering, gender bias, media grandstanding, and more. The sixth edition features a new chapter on mass media and sport, a revised introduction that lays out the two themes of the book with fresh examples, and a significantly revised chapter on college sport that asks whether or not big-time college sports are compatible with higher education. This edition also features new material throughout, such as the rising costs and increasing injuries in youth sports, fantasy sports, homophobia in sport, “one and done,” and more. Fair and Foul draws on examples ranging from youth to pro sports to give us a deeper understanding of how sports shape our everyday world. Ideal for sparking classroom discussion, Fair and Foul is an excellent book for students of sports and society, American culture, and other courses

This intriguing book offers a comprehensive examination of all issues related to sports and criminal behavior, from high school to professional athlete, player to spectator. Fair or Foul: Sports and Criminal Behavior in the United States is an examination of the intersection of these two increasingly connected worlds. The book was written to answer two questions. First, is there a relationship between athletic participation and criminal behavior? Second, what other connections—positive or negative—exist between sports and crime? To arrive at his answers, author Christopher S. Kudlac surveys professional, college, and high school sports in relation to crime, spectator crime, and gambling. Other topics include how urban sports programs help deter kids from getting involved in crime and how the use of sports in prisons has worked to positive effect. The book also examines the issues of aggression, masculinity, commercial incentives (or disincentives), and other contributing factors that may spur illegal activity among athletes and spectators. Looking at the subject from the perspectives of criminal justice and forensic psychology, Kudlac is able to uncover just how intertwined the two worlds are—for better or for worse.

Singapore’s 2020 general election saw its fair share of drama and comedy, and the results were not unexpected. But beyond the polls, the hard truth is impossible to avoid—the electoral system is in dire need of an overhaul. Former journalist and university lecturer Bertha Henson takes you through the days leading up to 10 July 2020 and peels back the veneer of Singapore politics. Aided by a team of NUS undergraduates, she draws on her past experience covering Singapore’s polls to give you a blow-by-blow account of the campaign, and some cold truths about the political playing field.

A summer on an idyllic island surrounded by water and wildlife. What could possibly go wrong? When eleven-year-old Becca returns to her grandmother’s rustic cottage for another summer, she finds herself seeing her beloved island in new ways. A hunting owl mistakes a bobbing ponytail for prey. A cozy sleepover on the beach takes on the tinges of a nightmare when a family of river otters shows up to claim their territory. An argument between a nestbound baby eaglet and its haranguing mother reaches operatic dimensions. Becca finds a dead bear on the beach and helps to give it a burial at sea. Then there are dramas of the human variety. Aunt Meg is grieving over a miscarriage, and Aunt Clare’s medical work in Africa has brought on a sadness that even the love of family and the island’s beauty can’t cure. And there is the burning question of whether Aunt Fifi and the local plumber will ever become an item, and would that mean losing the only plumber on the island? Meanwhile, cousin Alicia claims to be too old to participate in the kids’ summer project — a performance of The Tempest, a play that seems to find unsettling echoes in the natural surroundings Becca thought she knew so well. Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.2 Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize the text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.2 Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.3 Describe how a particular story's or drama's plot unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot moves toward a resolution.