Product Details
Body Politic: The Great American Sports Machine

Body Politic: The Great American Sports Machine
By David Shields

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Product Description

In Body Politic, David Shields looks at contemporary America and its mythology through the lens of professional and college sports. The result is an unusually insightful and provocative book about an empire in denial. Shields relentlessly examines the way we tell our sports stories (both fictional and nonfictional), considers the kinds of athletes we choose as heroes, and delineates the lessons and values we glean from sports. He explores the intricate and telling relationships between players and coaches, black and white players, immigrant and native players, male and female players, players and broadcasters, players and fans, and players and advertisers. In the process, he shows us the stories we Americans tell ourselves about the kind of people we believe ourselves to be.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #1534811 in Books
  • Published on: 2007-11-01
  • Original language: English
  • Dimensions: .46" h x 5.56" w x 8.46" l, .56 pounds
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 208 pages

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
As a professional sportswriter, Shields (Black Planet: Facing Race During an NBA Season) does more than simply record wins and losses, and in this volume, he takes a serious look at how Americans view sports. He analyzes the temperament, behavior and attitudes of both players and coaches. He is especially interested in clashes—racial, cultural and regional. When writing about basketball, Shields wonders about the prevalence of black players, many of whom grew up without a father. As he discusses the skirmishes between blacks and whites, he observes, "Black players, especially, get tired of, especially, white coaches yipping at them. Players complain that most coaches don’t speak to them ‘man to man’; most coaches can’t fathom how their tirades can carry racial connotations to players." With stylish prose, Shields also discusses, among others, basketball legend Charles Barkley, Seattle Mariners’ right fielder Ichiro Suzuki, and Kayla Burt, a college basketball player whose promising career was curtailed by heart surgery. Shields’s polished writing and his coverage of more significant matters than just a win—race relations, teamwork, etc.—is solid. Had the book a more unified theme, instead of reading like individual essays, it would have wider appeal.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Shields, author of the award-winning Black Planet: Facing Race during an NBA Season (1999), explores such diverse topics as the late sportscaster Howard Cosell, his indirect media offspring Charles Barkley, and the cultural differences between sports in the East compared with sports in the West (think Sopranos versus the Grateful Dead). He also traverses the world of tattoos, in which the athletic body becomes a work of art, just as sports--basketball in particular--have become the artistic milieu of inner-city youth. Perhaps the most intriguing chapter in the book dissects sports cinema, arguing that the universal theme of sports movies is Christian rebirth; even the most sophisticated film buffs will find nuances they overlooked in their viewing. If Shields has an agenda, he disguises it well; like the best teachers, he creates a sense of shared exploration with his readers. Highly recommended for sports fans looking for more than the daily box scores or the latest saccharine as-told-to sports biography. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"A thinking person''s collection of sports essays. . . . The author is a mild, reflective man who suspects there is a strong element of resurrection and salvation in sports . . . and who can cobble together a fluid chapter out of sporting clichés: ten pages that sound either like wacky Shakespeare or a whole lot of ironic license plates tied end-to-end. Pensive and shrewd."—Kirkus
(Kirkus )

“[Shields elucidates superbly the paradox of sports coverage: although feats of the body seem to defy language, sports is nonetheless ‘imprisoned by its prevailing rhetoric.’ The ambition in these piercing essays is to discern the reality behind the rhetoric.”—Daniel G. Habib, Sports Illustrated
(Daniel G. Habib Sports Illustrated )

“Sweeping insights . . . an intellectual tour de force.”—Steve Weinberg, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
(Steve Weinberg St. Louis Post-Dispatch )

“Like Charles Barkley, Shields is outspoken, controversial, and never dull.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune
(Minneapolis Star Tribune )

"Shields has carved out a singular place for himself as the poet of sports writing."—Regina Hackett, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
(Regina Hackett Seattle Post-Intelligencer )