In book that will be cheered by soccer fans worldwide, Robert Edelman finds in the stands and on the pitch keys to understanding everyday life under Stalin, Khrushchev, and their successors. To cheer for Spartak, Edelman shows, was to oppose the regime.

Robert Edelman is Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego. His previous books include Serious Fun: A History of Spectator Sports in the USSR, winner of the North American Society of Sports Historians Book of the Year. His research for Spartak Moscow was supported by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.