Soccer is much more than a game, or even a way of life. It is a perfect window into the cross-currents of today's world, with all its joys and its sorrows. In this remarkably insightful, wide-ranging work of reportage, Franklin Foer takes readers on a surprising tour through the world of soccer, shining a spotlight on the clash of civilizations, the international economy, and just about everything in between. "How Soccer Explains the World" is an utterly original book that makes sense of our troubled times.

If you were a Bar Mitzvah boy in the postwar years, you probably received a gift called Great Jews in Sports. Your goy friends enjoyed a good snicker when they saw it on the shelf above your desk, but you coveted the volume. It not only supplied a pantheon for you to worship; it served as a refutation of all those cheap stereotypes about effeminate, bookish Jews that followed you to Pop Warner try-outs, and that you were convinced resulted in a condescending ten-steps-forward outfield shift during your turn at-bat. So it is with a humble spirit of deference that editors Franklin Foer and Marc Tracy propose its successor: Jewish Jocks: An Unothodox Hall of Fame, a collection of biographical musings on the most influential Jews in sports. The sports figures profiled in Jewish Jocks go beyond athletes to include coaches, broadcasters, owners, trainers and even statisticians (in the finite universe of Jewish Jocks, they count!) Contributors include some of today's most celebrated writers, such as New Yorker editor David Remnick; novelists Jonathan Safran Foer and Booker-prize winner Howard Jacobson; sports writer Buzz Bissinger; economist Larry Summers; columnist David Brooks; journalists Jane Leavy, Steven Pinker and Dahlia Lithwick writing on figures such as Howad Cosell, Art Shamsky, Kerri Strug, Harold Solomon, Sandy Koufax, Shirley Povitch, and many, many more.

What in the world has the power to liberate women in Iran while provoking antagonism between Catholics and Protestants in Scotland, to lure Nigerians to the cold of the Ukraine while heating up class warfare in the US heartlands, and both profit local gangsters and create local - and international - celebrities? Foer presents an unexpected, uniquely revealing tour of the politics and culture of football from Milan to Tehran. He examines the game's role in sustaining ancient hatreds and rivalries (Serbia's Red Star and Croatia's Dinamo); in supporting the migration of players and the rise of the football oligarchs (such as Silvio Berlusconi, President of AC Milan - and of Italy); and in defending the virtues and vices of old-fashioned nationalism. As Foer brilliantly illuminates, the Balkan War, anti-Semitism, Jewish identity, racism, social integration, media manipulation, and American patriotism have all been influenced by, as well as have had a dramatic effect on, football. On his travels, Foer encounters a collection of fans that is stranger than fiction: from a British hooligan with a Jewish mother, a Nazi father and a career as a soldier of fortune, to a fan club in Serbia that turns into a brutal anti-Muslim paramilitary unit. The result is an unforgettable parade of uniquely memorable fans - each set into his - or her - unique political and cultural context.

A timely and powerful must-read on how the big tech companies are damaging our culture - and what we can do to fight their influence Four titanic corporations are now the most powerful gatekeepers the world has ever known. We shop with Amazon, socialise on Facebook, turn to Apple for entertainment, and rely on Google for information. They have conquered our culture and set us on a path to a world without private contemplation or autonomous thought: a world without mind. In this book, Franklin Foer makes a passionate, deeply informed case for the need to restore our inner lives and reclaim our intellectual culture before it is too late. At stake is nothing less than who we are, and what we will become. It is a message that could not be more timely.