<b>A <i>New York Times</i> Best Seller<i><br><br></i><b><b>“Powerful...an important read.&quot;</b></b><i><b><i><b> —<i>Publishers Weekly<br><br></i></b></i></b>New York Times </i>bestselling author Steve Almond takes on America’s biggest sacred cow: football</b><br><br>In <i>Against Football</i>, Steve Almond details why, after forty years as a fan, he can no longer watch the game he still loves. Using a synthesis of memoir, reportage, and cultural critique, Almond asks a series of provocative questions:<br><br>• Does our addiction to football foster a tolerance for violence, greed, racism, and homophobia?<br>• What does it mean that our society has transmuted the intuitive physical joys of childhood—run, leap, throw, tackle—into a billion-dollar industry?<br>• How did a sport that causes brain damage become such an important emblem for our institutions of higher learning?<br><br>There has never been a book that exposes the dark underside of America’s favorite game with such searing candor.