[SC Skins Fan]

As of this minute I am reading A Republic in Time: Temporality and Social Imagination in Nineteenth-Century America by Thomas M. Allen. I wouldn't recommend it for light reading, I'm struggling with it personally ... but since you asked ....

I also just finished Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas?, which is directed at a more popular audience. More descriptive than analytical and I found it particularly lacking in its historical analysis of the 'Backlash' ideology that he describes, but as a description of the de-coupling of economic class from politics and his characterization of contemporary Kansas as a case of 1890's Populism turned on it's head I found it compelling (though he perhaps takes an overly romantic view of Populism by avoiding - as he does throughout the book - any discussion of race).

If you are interested in making a foray into academic history and also wanted to read about football there is a professor at Oregon State, Michael Oriard, who has written a number of books on the subject. His latest is recently out from UNC Press entitled Brand NFL: Making and Selling America's Favorite Sport, which I gather is a cultural history of consumerism and the evolution of the NFL image. He has some other work on early popular presentations of the sport in newspapers and newsreels. I think I have most of his books checked out from the library, but have not actually read any of them so I can't give a personal opinion but would be interested what others thought if they got a chance to read any of them ... would even be up for discussing any of them as it would give me an excuse to pick one up and read it.