Football and Fascism. The Politics of Popular Culture in Portugal tells the hidden history of football and discusses its political, social and cultural foundations, during the longest running authoritarian regime in Europe. Theoretically grounded on Bourdieu’s field theory, and using a multi-scalar methodology, this award-winning research explores the political tensions between the nationalization of sports envisaged by the Portuguese “New State” and the integration of national football in a globalized urban popular culture. Mobilizing unexplored archival sources, and a wide array of primary materials, this groundbreaking work offers new insight into the administrative structures of the corporativist state, the making of an authoritarian cultural program, and the relationship between state institutions and civil society. Besides broadening the scope of existing transnational histories of football, this study also puts into question the conventional geographies and political chronologies adopted in sports history.

About the Author

Rahul Kumar, a scholar at the Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal, won the 2015 “Mário Soares Award – EDP Foundation” for best work in Portuguese history by researchers under 35 and received an honorable mention, also in 2015, in the “CES Award for Young Portuguese speaking Social Scientists,” by the Centre for Social Studies of Coimbra University.

Book Details

Title: Football and Fascism: The Politics of Popular Culture in Portugal

Author: Rahul Kumar

Publisher‏: ‎Walter de Gruyter

Publication Date: June 6, 2023

Language‏: ‎English

Hardcover‏: ‎230pp

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