Basketball
Abstract
If basketball has attracted less attention from historians than sports such as baseball or boxing, it has nevertheless inspired a wide-ranging literature. Scholars and journalists have explored the game’s origins, its early manifestations, and the particular histories of women’s and African American basketball. The development of the professional game has received a more authoritative, analytical approach in Robert Peterson’s Cages to Jump Shots. Among the more intriguing recent works on basketball’s early history and its relationship to ethnic communities is Kathleen Yep’s Outside the Paint. If the historical literature on women’s basketball has appeared mostly in the past decade, some of the best work on men’s college basketball dates back to the 1970s. The modern professional game is the subject of more analysis than the college game, as the National Basketball Association (NBA) emerged from a “bush league” reputation to become the third major team sports league in America.
Publication Title
A Companion to American Sport History
Recommended Citation
Goudsouzian, A. (2014). Basketball. A Companion to American Sport History, 246-268. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118609446.ch11
