A Game of Polo with a Headless Goat

During a seven-year journey around India spent immersing herself in the cricket subculture, author Emma Levine heard about the wonderful game of buzkashi, a kind of anarchic rugby on horseback where teams of men wrestle and race to grab a headless goat and propel it towards goal. This sparked a desire to explore Asia's unique traditional sports. A Game of Polo with a Headless Goat is Emma Levine's absorbing account of her epic adventure, which took her from camel wrestling in Turkey through bull racing in India to traditional gymnastics in Iran, performed to poetry and the beat of a drum. Sometimes she travelled so far off the beaten track that her journeys sometimes took days and she discovered places where western women are such a rare sight that she was mobbed by onlookers. And everywhere she went she met people who act as the guardians of their ancient sports, protecting the traditions that have evolved over generations. While they recount the folklore that surrounds their local pastimes, Emma Levine examines the status of indigenous sports in a world dominated by satellite TV, the web and the likes of Manchester United. Are they sports of the past or sports of the future?
Illustrated with stunning photography, A Game of Polo with a Headless Goat evocatively portrays sporting ways of life rarely seen in the western world in such a way as to reveal what it is about sport that makes it so universally inspiring.