From the author Robert Lipsyte calls the best young sportswriter in
America, a rollicking, rebellious, myth-busting history of sports in
America that puts politics in the ring with pop culture
In this long-waited book from the rising superstar of sportswriting,
whose blog Edge of Sports is read each week by thousands of people
across the country, Dave Zirin offers a riotously entertaining chronicle
of larger-than-life sporting characters and dramatic contests and what
amounts to an alternative history of the United States as seen through
the games its people played. Through Zirin's eyes, sports are never mere
games, but a reflection of--and spur toward--the political conflicts
that shape American society.
Half a century before Jackie Robinson was born, the black ballplayer
Moses Fleetwood Walker brandished a revolver to keep racist fans at bay,
then took his regular place in the lineup. In the midst of the
Depression, when almost no black athletes were allowed on the U.S.
Olympic team, athletes held a Counter Olympics where a third of the
participants were African American.
A People's History of Sports in the United States is replete with
surprises for seasoned sports fans, while anyone interested in history
will be amazed by the connections Zirin draws between politics and pop
flies. As Jeff Chang, author of Can't Stop Won't Stop, puts it, After
you read him, you'll never see sports the same way again.
