Word: manias
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...There is no evidence that, for example, the CEO of General Motors sat down with the officials of the NFL one day back in the '50s or '60s and said, "Whaddya say we try the old bread-and-circuses scam?" On the contrary, I believe Americans went into sports mania willingly and with their eyes wide open. There is a human need, perhaps especially in a culture that routinely pits each against all in a relentless competition for parking spaces and aisle seats, to achieve the ecstatic merger with the mass represented by the wave or the chop. Besides...
...speaking of ancient Rome, Super Bowl weekend may be the optimal moment to reflect on the true reason for that empire's fall--which, it could be argued, was not decadence, Christianity or post-orgy bulimia but rampant sports mania. At the height of the empire, the stadium was the centerpiece of every Roman town, dwarfing mere housing and temples. Loyalty to the chariot-racing leagues, with their colorful banners, eclipsed all political passions. When the barbarians attacked the gates of the Roman city of Hippo, no one much noticed because the groans of the dying soldiers on the wall...
...People's Tragedy (Viking) In this tale of what went wrong with the Russian Revolution, Cambridge historian Orlando Figes deals vividly with starvation, disease, tribal hatreds, sociopathic bloodlust, religious mania, governmental terrorism and most other sources of human misery. Plus, Figes argues, stupidity ruled the times, quite literally in the stiff presence of Czar Nicholas II. A smarter leader might have led to a better 20th century...
...Mania Diawawa, chair of Africana studies at New York University (NYU), said he found black studies and African studies to be inadequate upon his arrival...
...readings for the weeks on youth culture include "Delinquent Boys," an article on gang culture; a section from Freeway Females called "Working class without work: High school students in a de-industrializing economy;" and a New York Times article titled "Heavy-Metal Mania: It's More Than Music...