Dave Zirin

Offers insight into the role of politics, pop culture, and other influences on the nation's athletics, in a narrative account that places an emphasis on how race-related conflicts have had a significant impact on sporting events.

250 Years of Politics, Protest, People, and Play

A People's History of Sports in the United States

✨Tyler ✨

this actually had a lot of the same information from "whats my name, fool" but a good read none-the-less.

David Zirin

In this long-awaited book from the rising superstar of sportswriting, whose blog “The 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.”

A People's History of Sports in the United States 250 Years of Politics, Protest, People, and Play