A collaboration between one of our finest sportswriters, New York Times columnist Lipsyte, and one of the premier academic sports historians, Levine (Michigan State Univ.), tracing the history of American sport through the lives of 16 of its most important icons. It ought to be a blockbuster. It isn't. The basis for a six-part series to air this fall on TBS, Idols, at its best, is studded with insights into the awkward relationship between sport and commerce, an all too increasingly friendly embrace that is beginning to look like a death grip. By retelling the familiar stories of 16 sports heroes and heroines, the authors trace the growth of that embrace while also charting changing American attitudes toward African-Americans and women. American sport is powered, they argue, by ``twin engines . . . money and macho,'' from the last bare-knuckle championship on the North American continent, in which the great John L. Sullivan outlasted Jake Kilrain, to Martina Navratilova's farewell to Wimbledon. The book deals intelligently with the class, race, and gender barriers that are as thoroughly imbricated in sport as in the rest of society and offers some useful correctives to many legends (not merely the self-consciously silly posturings of the ``Win one for the Gipper'' speech but, more important, the real nature of George Gipp's football-mercenary career at Notre Dame). But Lipsyte and Levine often are forced to oversimplify both sports and political history in an effort to shoehorn more material into their essays, and the choice of the profile as vehicle proves unsatisfying, with many judgments that would make sense in a broader context reading like a parody of political correctness when placed in these TV-sized capsules. Lipsyte and Levine mesh well together, and it would be great to see them write a real, comprehensive social history of American sport.
Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1995
ISBN: 1-57036-154-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1995
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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