Thank you, University of Nebraska Press, for providing this book for review consideration in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Mr. Book just finished Race And Resistance In Boston: A Contested Sports History, edited by Robert Cvornyek and Douglas Stark.
This book will be released on February 1, 2025.
I found this book to be inconsistent. There was only about a 50-50 split between the chapters that were interesting and those that weren’t.
The strongest part of this book was the chapter on Bill Russell and the Celtics, while the chapter on the Negro Leagues in Boston was interesting. But, that chapter also pointed the biggest weakness of the book. I was primarily interested in this book because of the Red Sox history in this area. I knew coming into reading it that other sports would be covered. But, to not give the Red Sox their own chapter was a huge omission.
The chapters on sportswriters and difference in reactions between Jason Collins and Britney Gainer coming out were also among the high points. But, the chapters on sports like cricket, golf, soccer, hockey and women’s basketball were among the low points. My interest in sports books is almost exclusively baseball, but will occasionally read a football book. But, when it comes to anthologies, like this one, I have found the way to separate them is by how they treat the sports that I’m not interested in. The good ones are able to hold my interest even in the chapters that are about sports I don’t follow. Unfortunately, this book couldn’t do that. I think those chapters would only be of interest to those are fans of those sports, while not being of interest to the rest of sports fans.
I have to give this one a C, based mostly on the amount of chapters that seemed like they would only interest fans of that particular sport, but also because of the lack of a full chapter on the Red Sox and their racial history. Goodreads requires grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, a C equates to 2 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).
This review has been posted at Goodreads and my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews
Mr. Book finished reading this on October 11, 2024.
