Different Evolutionary Models - Past, Present, and Future - Certain to Collide at Women's World Cup 2023
With this new edition of his feted 2019 volume, Dr. Andrei Markovits - author of many books and academic papers on world fútbol, published in multiple languages - trains his canny, socio-historical eye on the contrasting cultural forces shaping women's soccer in 2023.
- A head start. Where North American women, starting in the 1970s, enjoyed newly rendered systems and cultural spaces left empty by traditionally male-centered team sports, their European sisters were forced to contest what has arguably been the most male-dominated space in European public life.
- Changing dynamics. These nuanced, divergent evolutions help explain the dominance of the 4-time World Cup champion United States. However, hard-won access to the European player-development apparatus, mainly at the club level, has tipped the balance of power.
- Crucial support. Markovits also identifies the one cohort vital to the sport's commercial success, on either side of the Atlantic: women themselves, who have rarely (if ever) supported any team game at the professional level in numbers that would allow women's soccer to compete equitably with team sports played exclusively and watched largely by men.
No book better explains this fascinating state of play or better preps the global soccer community for a World Cup sure to remake the sport's balance of power.
Markovits, Andrei S.: - Andrei S. Markovits, born in October 1948 in the West Romanian city of Timisoara as the only child of a Hungarian-speaking middle-class Jewish couple, is the Karl W. Deutsch Collegiate Professor of Comparative Politics and German Studies and an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Raised in Vienna and New York City, Markovits attended Columbia University from which he received five degrees. His academic career led him to holding positions on the faculties of Wesleyan University, Boston University, and the University of California at Santa Cruz before assuming his current professorships at the University of Michigan in 1999. In addition, Markovits was a long-time member of the Center for European Studies at Harvard University where he was also a Visiting Professor of Social Studies in 2002-2003. Markovits held guest professorships at universities in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Israel. He has been awarded many fellowships and was a member of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences of Stanford University and the Institute for Advanced Study Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin). His many books, articles, and reviews have appeared in fifteen languages. Markovits' published scholarship ranges from European social democracy and labor unions to European anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism; from the politics of scandal to that of the Green movement and party in Germany. His latest work has been primarily focused on the consumption of sports (i.e., the fans as opposed to the athletes) in North America and Europe, as well as dog rescue in the ever-changing context of human-animal relations. Markovits was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Leuphana University in Lueneburg, Germany. Additonally, the President of the Federal Republic of Germany bestowed on Markovits the Cross of the Order of Merit, First Class, one of the highest honors awarded by Germany to Germans and foreigners alike. A lover of all music, Markovits has been particularly enamored with the work of Mozart, Beethoven, Dvorak, and the Grateful Dead, whom he followed on many a tour on the East Coast between 1969 and Jerry Garcia's tragic and untimely death in 1995. A devoted lover of golden retrievers over many years, Markovits and his wife, Kiki, live with their beloved golden Emma in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Markovits recently published his memoir under the title THE PASSPORT AS HOME: COMFORT IN ROOTLESSNESS. (Budapest and Vienna: The Central European University Press, 2021). The book has also appeared in a German and Romanian translation!
