The subtitle is equally catchy, but Foer's thesis flickers on and off like a light bulb on its last amps. The main point seems to be that the diffusion of soccer from England to the rest of the world demonstrates that globalization in its modern form tends to impose a secular template that allows for considerable local variation. This point is made, more precisely and with much greater detail, by Joseph Maguire, Pierre Lanfranchi, and a number of other sports sociologists, none of whom is mentioned in the brief ''Note on Sources." Is the book, despite its major flaws, worth the reader's time and money? Definitely. Foer is an accomplished journalist. His sketches of historical background are deftly done. His skills as a narrator are enviable. His characterizations, many of them based on interviews, are comparable to those in Norman Mailer's journalism. Foer's portraits, like Mailer's, are dramatically effective caricatures.
Foer begins with Red Star Belgrade, the Serbian team whose brutal fans were led by the late Zeljko Raznatovic (better known as ''Arkan"). When Yugoslavia collapsed into civil war, Arkan shaped his followers into ''Milosevic's shock troops, the most active agents of ethnic cleansing, highly efficient practitioners of genocide." The informants for this chapter include an older fan, who wonders aloud whether or not he should murder Foer, and Arkan's widow, a pop idol.
In Glasgow, pathological ethnic hatreds are expressed by Roman Catholic hooligans loyal to the Celtics and by Protestant hooligans devoted to the Rangers. Foer spent most of his time with the latter, men (and women) given to wearing orange shirts, waving the Union Jack, singing ''Rule Britannia," and screaming ''Up to our knees in Fenian blood!"
