There have been histories of Australian football before. There has not been one like Carn. Carn tells the story of the Victorian Football League and its successor, the Australian Football League, from 1897 to the present day, by focusing on 50 of the thousands of games which have been played down the decades. Some of these matches have been significant to the game of Australian football; others have been significant to Australia as a whole. Carn recognises that while the game is only a game, it has also always been much more than that: anything which consumes so much of the nation's attention can't help but reflect something of the nation's character. Carn is a book replete, as the Australian game is, with great yarns and extraordinary people. It is a book for fans of Australian football, and fans of Australia.