G. Edward White's brief and engaging narrative history of soccer in the United States takes the reader from the origins of the game in England to its first days in the United States and up to the present day. Along the way it seeks to answer two central questions. The first is why did soccer, a game that began in England and spread throughout most of the world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, not take root in the United States as a major sport during that same period, even though those years were ones in which other sports dramatically increased as recreational and commercial activities in America? The second is the converse of the first: why has soccer since the 1970s dramatically increased in popularity as both a participatory and spectator activity in the United States, so that it now has more participants than any other major sport save basketball, and has a well-established professional league? In the course of his exploration, White considers the early history of "Association football" (soccer) in England, the persistent struggles by the sport to establish itself in America for much of the twentieth century, the role of American public high schools and colleges in marginalizing the sport, and the part played by FIFA, the international organizations, in hindering the development of the sport in the United States. White also highlights the unusual history of women's soccer in America, which evolved from a virtually nonexistent sport to a major factor in the emergence of both men's and women's soccer in the United States in the twentieth century. Accessible to readers of all levels, White's history incorporates insights from sociology and economics in its analysis of the shifting perceptions about the place and identity of a sport in the culture of a nation. Book jacket.