Alpert, Rebecca T. Religion and Sports: An Introduction and Case Studies. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2015. Pp. x+209. Illustrations, notes, and index. $28.00 paperback. Reviewed by Hunter M. Hampton It is fellowship application season, and that means that over the past couple of weeks I have written a lot of syllabi. Some are easy to…
Enevold, Jessica, and Esther MacCallum-Stewart (Eds.). Game Love: Essays on Play and Affection. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015. Pp. ix+273. Notes, index. $40.00 paperback. Reviewed by Colleen English Game Love: Essays on Play and Affection is admittedly different than most of the books reviewed on this blog. Unlike much scholarship in sport studies, which focuses on…
Grundman, Dolph. Dolph Schayes and the Rise of Professional Basketball. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2014. Pp. xix+163. Illustrations, notes, works cited, and index. $24.95 clothback. Reviewed by Paul Putz When Dolph Schayes passed away last December, the New York Times devoted two stories to the legacy of the basketball Hall-of-Famer. One described Schayes, who…
Nathanson, Mitchell. A People’s History of Baseball. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012 (hardback), 2015 (paperback). Pp. xiv+272. Notes, index, and appendices. $19.95 paperback. Reviewed by Jorge Iber An effective way to summarize Mitchell Nathanson’s book, A People’s History of Baseball, can be found at the very end of the work when the author notes…
Overmyer, James E. Black Ball and the Boardwalk: The Bacharach Giants of Atlantic City, 1916-1929. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2014. 30 Photos, Appendices, Notes, Bibliography, Index. Pp. 284. $39.95 softback. Plott, William J. The Negro Southern League: A Baseball History, 1920-1951. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2015. 30 Photos, Appendices,…
Kryk, John. Stagg vs. Yost: The Birth of Cutthroat Football. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. Pp. 360. 32 b/w photographs, acknowledgements, selected bibliography, index. $33.82 hardcover. Reviewed by Michael T. Wood As the title suggests, veteran journalist and Michigan football historian John Kryk’s second book, Stagg vs. Yost: The Birth of Cutthroat Football, examines…
Interested in cultural meaning and the processes that solidify certain versions of history at the expense of others, Rita Liberti and Maureen M. Smith provide a delightfully engaging analysis of what can often be a frustrating cycle of collective memory in their monograph (Re)Presenting Wilma Rudolph. They actively reconsider what a biography is and provide an excellent study upon which we can ponder the processes of historical analysis.
Finnegan, William. Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life. New York: Penguin, 2015. Pp. 447. Black and white photos. $27.95 hardback. Reviewed by Tolga Ozyurtcu Surfers are a fickle lot: millions of people singularly obsessed with something that has been around for thousands of years, who do not really agree about anything. Surfing is: a sport, not…
Davis, David. Waterman: The Life and Times of Duke Kahanamoku. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015. 34 Photographs, Notes, Bibliography, and Index. Pp. 256. $26.95 hardback. Reviewed by Lindsay Parks Pieper Along the Waikiki beachfront in Honolulu stands a statue of local hero Duke Kahanamoku. The bare-chested, swim-trunk clad, bronze figure is positioned in front…
Thomas, Damion L. Globetrotting: African American Athletes and Cold War Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012. 232 pp. $60.00 cloth. Reviewed by Andrew D. Linden In Globetrotting: African American Athletes and Cold War Politics, Damion L. Thomas analyzes the US government’s use of African American athletes as tools in the ideological battle between American…
Sport in American History 