Body Politic: The Great American Sports Machine

by David Shields

A sportswriter and author of Black Planet examines the way in which basketball players have become public heroes, focusing on such individuals as Ichiro Suzuki, Latrell Sprewell, and Hideki Matsui and exploring such topics as athlete tattoos, sports movie resurrection myths, and the recent influx of European players. 15,000 first printing.

Genres: Sports

208 pages, Hardcover

First published April 27, 2004

About the author

David Shields is the author of fourteen books, including Reality Hunger (Knopf, 2010), which was named one of the best books of 2010 by more than thirty publications. GQ called it "the most provocative, brain-rewiring book of 2010"; the New York Times called it "a mind-bending manifesto." His previous book, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead (Knopf, 2008), was a New York Times bestseller. His other books include Black Planet: Facing Race During an NBA Season, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; Remote: Reflections on Life in the Shadow of Celebrity, winner of the PEN/Revson Award; and Dead Languages: A Novel, winner of the PEN Syndicated Fiction Award. His essays and stories have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Harper's, Yale Review, Believer, Village Voice, Salon, Slate, McSweeney's, and Utne Reader; he's written reviews for the New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times Book Review, Boston Globe, and Philadelphia Inquirer. His work has been translated into fifteen languages.

Reviews

[Downward]

some of these essays are better than others, but this is overall a pretty good contribution to the dwindling marketplace for "serious literature about sports." the highlight here is the essay on Charles Barkley, which I'm pretty sure is also in another book by Shields that I read and forgot about.

[Ryan Murtha]

Tries to make some high minded points but definitely a 'he'll lead you to the water but you have to drink' type book.

[Mike]

Some observations on American and world culture refracted through the prism of sports, primarily baseball and the NBA. Overall a pretty good read. Sometime overly intellectual, but a Seattle author who happens to also be a sports fan, sadly, has LOTS of cause to pontificate, as he is rarely found celebrating many victories...

[Mattmiller]

I like reading David Shields on sports. He is an insightful guy, almost to a fault sometimes. He can get a little too academic for a simple fellow like myself. But I would say 70% of these sports essays are good and worth your time. I especially liked the one that analyzes athletes who were great yet lose it mentally. Also, all the stuff on the NBA is pretty darn good.