"The Imperial Gridiron is a fluid and accessible read, a teaching tool sure to captivate students of American history and culture, and a valuable credit to the field."—John A. Goodwin, Journal of American History
"Historians interested in how discourses of manliness and "civilization" intersect with football will find much to appreciate in this book. . . . We are fortunate that the exceptional and praiseworthy effort was made to bring this book to print, which will no doubt become a standard account in the history of football at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School."—Art Remillard, International Journal for Sports and Religion
"[The Imperial Gridiron] is a valuable contribution that is truly the collaborative product of two fine scholars."—Wade Davies, South Dakota History
"The Imperial Gridiron provides another good addition to the study of the complexities of race and athletics that continue to find discourse inside and outside of academia."—Roger Moore, Chronicles of Oklahoma
“Carlisle football teams always aimed to show off masculine American Indian bodies. Tracing shifts in the meaning of that display—from virtuous civilization to a more brutal physicality—Matthew Bentley and John Bloom tell a powerful new story about the internal contradictions and long decline of America’s iconic Indian boarding school. A revelatory book that is not to be missed.”—Philip J. Deloria, author of Indians in Unexpected Places
“Clear and engaging. This book offers an accessible history of the entanglements of race, empire, sport, gender, and schooling as manifested in the play of football at the Carlisle institution. While we are fortunate to have an increasingly sophisticated literature focused on Native Americans in the field of sports studies, this book stands alone in its close reading of masculinity, racial formation, and modernity.”—C. Richard King, author of Redskins: Insult and Brand
“The Imperial Gridiron contributes significantly to the fields of off-reservation Indian boarding school studies, sport studies, and studies on masculinity. What makes this book unique is that it offers a serious interrogation of Native athletes and masculinity by providing the reader with scholarly and theoretical depth.”—Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert, author of Education beyond the Mesas: Hopi Students at Sherman Institute, 1902–1929
