Book excerpt: Sports are more important than ever socially, economically and culturally. As well as embodying cherished values and ideals, sports now reflect many of the worries of wider society. Drugs, racism, corruption and violence are all now major concerns and our experience of sport is increasingly subject to a gigantic industry made up of owners, players, sports goods manufacturers, television networks and corporate sponsors. In this newly expanded edition of Making Sense of Sports, Cashmore addresses all these issues as well as the more basic questions about the history of sports, its social context and possible future development. Among the new editions other themes are: * the body, how it works and why it is more cultural than natural * why women continue to be devalued and depreciated by sports * Nike, globalization and the sports industry * art and how it reflects changing conceptions of sports.