A review by mattycakesbooks
A People's History of Sports in the United States: 250 Years of Politics, Protest, People, and Play by Dave Zirin

4.0

It delivers more or less exactly what it promises, so if you're a leftist who's into sports, this is a solid book for you. There are two main problems that bumped me down from a 5: first, the history was a bit lopsided. The book claims to be about the past 250 years, but in reality, it mostly covers the last 70 years or so. Not that I minded - I somehow doubt sports history was that big of a thing before the 20th century - but it just felt lopsided.

The second issue was that I would have liked more on the "stadiums instead of urban policy" debate. I've read some of Zirin's other stuff on this in the past, and it's pretty awesome stuff. I was hoping for more of that here. Otherwise, pretty good.