The Power and the Glory

A New History of the World Cup

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About this listen

'A master at telling football's greatest ever stories... Breathtaking. Wilson's eye for detail and his elegant writing brings the World Cup to life like no other book on the topic I have ever read' ELIS JAMES

'Epic in scope, awesomely rich in detail, and compulsively entertaining' TOM HOLLAND

'So much of what we know of football's history we know thanks to Wilson' SIMON KUPER

The football World Cup is the most watched sporting event on the planet. It has become a global obsession: 211 nations initially entered the 2022 edition. It has been running for almost a century. Yet there is no comprehensive history of the tournament: based on fresh interviews and meticulously researched this book will change that.

By 1930, football had outgrown the Olympic Games. A new competition, run by Fifa, would take international football to the next level. After a shambolic start to the first cup in Uruguay - an incomplete stadium, shoddy refereeing and physios accidentally injuring players - the thrilling final saw Uruguay take on Argentina, beating them 4-2.

From those chaotic beginnings grew the modern World Cup, a cultural phenomenon that draws the world together like nothing else, and that gives it a profound importance. Ask a random person on a random street to name a moment in the history of Senegal and they may well say Pape Bouba Diop's winner against France in the 2002 World Cup, a goal not only against the defending champions but against the former colonial masters.

The World Cup has political significance. West Germany's success in 1954 was a moment of reintegration into global society. Progress to the semi-finals in 1998 gave a huge boost to Croatia's sense of national self. But football is an unpredictable sport. In the so-called Soccer War of 1969 tensions between El Salvador and Honduras were ignited by a World Cup qualifier. More recently, the focus for governments seeking to political gain has been hosting the tournament, with the World Cups in Russia and Qatar clear examples of sportswashing, staging a tournament to project an image of a thriving society.

There has never been a comprehensive history of the World Cup that has considered not only the matches and goals, the players and coaches, the tales of scandal and genius, the haggling and skulduggery of the bidding process, but has also placed the tournaments within a socio-political framework. The story of the World Cup is also the story of the world; this book tells its definitive history.©2025 Jonathan Wilson Ltd

Jonathan WilsonPaul ThornleyLittle, Brown Audio

Sports History

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Imperialism

Sports History Sports Latin American War Imperialism

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Critic reviews

Meticulously researched and well-organised - an informative account of how the World Cup became the global event it is today

Essential... rich in political and cultural content (David Goldblatt)

A history of the World Cup that is also a four yearly temperature check on the history of the entire world. Epic in scope, awesomely rich in detail, and compulsively entertaining

An outstanding book by a truly outstanding writer. Jonathan Wilson understands not only the long history of the game, and the characters who gloriously shaped it, but also the essentials of the game itself. Once you've finished reading The Power and the Glory, you'll want the next World Cup finals to kick off tomorrow

Unfailingly lucid and objective, as well as packed with fascinating characters and anecdotes, Jonathan Wilson's The Power and the Glory is the authoritative history we have long needed about football's ultimate tournament

Jonathan Wilson is a master at telling football's greatest ever stories... Breathtaking. Wilson's eye for detail and his elegant writing brings the World Cup to life like no other book on the topic I have ever read

For the biggest show in sport, that has almost everything, this was the book the World Cup long needed. The definitive history, told through the elevation of the tournament's compelling storylines, as well as brilliant new details

So much of what we know of football's history we know thanks to Wilson, and he tells it so engagingly, with an eye for personality and story as well as the deeper structures. He sees the connections between football and everything else, and is dazzlingly international. The game is lucky to have him

Magisterial... the definitive account of the world's greatest sporting festival (Michael Taylor)

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