The Real All Americans is Sally Jenkins’ sweeping nonfiction account of two coinciding chapters in American history: Just as the Western frontier was closing, football “jumped up out of the mud” to replace it in the national psyche. Jenkins’ tale takes readers from a real battle in 1866 to a football contest in 1912, pitting the Carlisle Indians against West Point. “Football,” says the veteran sportswriter, “became a substitute for war,” and in its earliest days the game, like the real thing, could be mortally dangerous.

NPR Podcast: Sally Jenkins Discusses ‘The Real All Americans’ (37:43)