Contested Fields: A Global History of Modern Football

Few cultural activities speak more powerfully to international histories of the modern world than football. In the late nineteenth century, this cheap and simple sport emerged as a major legacy of Britain’s formal and informal empires and spread quickly across Europe, South America, and Africa. More slowly and hesitantly, it made inroads into the sports cultures of North America and Australasia. Today, football (known to many as soccer) is arguably the world’s most popular pastime, an activity played and watched by millions of people around the globe. It has also become the focus of a rich and diverse body of scholarly research.

Contested Fields introduces readers to key aspects of the global game, synthesizing research on football’s transnational role in reflecting and shaping political, socio-economic, and cultural developments over the past 150 years. Each chapter uses case studies and cutting-edge scholarship to analyze an important element of football’s international story: migration, money, competition, gender, race, space, spectatorship, and confrontation.

Building Better Britains? Settler Societies in the British World, 1783-1920

The effects of empires and the lingering presence of colonialism continue to be major preoccupations for scholars in the twenty-first century. This short new book explores the spread of settler colonies within the British Empire over the course of the nineteenth century—specifically those in New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, and Australia.

Building Better Britains? begins by examining colonial relationships with Indigenous peoples and the processes of migration and settlement that formed part of the British Empire's global expansion. It then moves on to discuss labour within settler economies as well as the domain of civil society—including family, domesticity, intimate relations, religion, and education. The book closes with an exploration of identity and culture in settler societies.

The series is dedicated to publishing concise, focused overviews of topics that are of international significance in the study of history. 

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Shaping the New World

Between 1500 and the middle of the nineteenth century, some 12.5 million slaves were sent as bonded labour from Africa to the European settlements in the Americas. Shaping the New World introduces students to the origins, growth, and consolidation of African slavery in the Americas and race-based slavery's impact on the economic, social, and cultural development of the New World.

While the book explores the idea of the African slave as a tool in the formation of new American societies, it also acknowledges the culture, humanity, and importance of the slave as a person and highlights the role of women in slave societies.

Serving as the third book in the UTP/CHA International Themes and Issues Series, Shaping the New World introduces readers to the topic of African slavery in the New World from a comparative perspective, specifically focusing on the English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch slave systems.

The series is dedicated to publishing concise, focused overviews of topics that are of international significance in the study of history. 

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The Shock of War: The Civilian Experience, 1937-1945

In The Shock of War: Civilian Experiences, 1937-1945, Sean Kennedy shifts the reader's focus from the battlefields of World War II to the civilian experience. This short yet comprehensive text complements existing studies of World War II that document diplomatic and military operations. While many of these studies acknowledge the significance of the conflict for civilians, The Shock of War places civilians at the centre of events, drawing attention to the many different regions of the world affected by the conflict, and comparing various facets of the civilian experience. Kennedy's refreshing approach emphasizes the diverse and complex impact of the war which in some instances brought people together and which in others was profoundly destructive.

The series is dedicated to publishing concise, focused overviews of topics that are of international significance in the study of history. 

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A World Beyond Borders, An Introduction to the History of International Organizations

The CHA is proud to announce the publication of the first in the Canadian Historical Association / University of Toronto Press International Themes and Issues Series, A World Beyond Borders, An Introduction to the History of International Organizations written by David McKenzie. The book traces the history of international organizations (IOs), with particular focus on the League of Nations, the development of the United Nations, and the UN system.

Following this chronological order, the book examines how international organizations became the major legal, moral, and cultural forces that they are today, involved in all aspects of international relations including peacekeeping, disarmament, peace resolution, human rights, diplomacy, and environmentalism.

The series is dedicated to publishing concise, focused overviews of topics that are of international significance in the study of history. 

Click on the image to place an order.