This must be the best book ever written about English cricket, and is up there with the best on cricket generally. With a sharp awareness of how much and how little cricket really matters, Marqusee dissects the vile attitudes of the English cricket establishment, explodes many of the myths it promulgates to maintain its grip on the game, and offers serious (if utopian) proposals for how the game could be reformed. Most striking is his detailed account of the racism whihc appears to pervade the top levels of the game. Unlike him and Dennis Skinner (from whom he took the title) I've been England fan all my life, but I suspect I shall have a hard time supporting them again. Anyone who loves cricket and really great writing should read this book.

The book deals with the various malaises infecting cricket in England. The author, an American-born Jew of Luthuanian descent (!) does not pull his punches while dealing with defeat, commericialism, racism, class conflcit...and various other contentious issues. The book is a classic, but has earnred the author, an avowed Marxist, a certain amount of notoriety, especiall in England. He is also the author of political books, cricket fiction and War With Minus The Shooting, the best commenatary on the 1996 World Cup. A unique writer with an unusual perspective.

This is nothing less than the story of an African American man's struggle to define himself within the context of the 60's US black power movement exploited by a white Englishman. Mike Marqusee brings nothing new to the story of Muhamed Ali other than stilted prose and an uncritical eye. It fails as a book about boxing and is equally weak with respect to Ali's struggle with the white establishment of his day. Marqusee's attempt to embrace Ali's story serves only to water down the true struggle of an entire generation against the evils of institutional racism.

This book isn't so much about Ali as about Black radical politics of the 60's and 70's and the way Ali's public life reflected them. An excellent, thoughtful book that reads more like a monograph than a work of popular non-fiction (cf. David Remnick's "King of the World", a more accessible book with a different focus and scope). If you are interested in the Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers, the Black Power movement and the ways boxing historically has reflected the racial realities of its time, you will find this book engrossing and informative. If you are looking for a conventional "boxing book" (whatever that is), you will be disappointed.

I'm not a boxing fan, but after seeing the recent "Ali" movie, I was inspired to take Mike Marqusee's "Redemption Song" off my bookshelf and read it. I got the book because I heard Marqusee last year in a radio interview about Ali and the Black Power movement of the sixties and I was very interested in the culture and politics that both shaped Ali and was influenced by him.

I found "Redemption Song" a powerful and well written book that gives so much more depth than the new movie. The depth of Marqusee's research and analysis made me realize that the Ali movie would have needed to be a trilogy in order to do justice the champ's life. Ali's defiance of racist draft policies could have been an entire movie in and of itself. While "Ali" movie focuses on Ali's defiance, Marqusee's book provides the context for Ali's anti-war stance. His description and analysis makes the movie's focus a mere footnote to this part of Ali's history. When Ali argued, "Man, I ain't got not quarrel with them Vietcong," he was taking a religious and political stance on a personal, cultural/racial, and class level. He was not only echoing the developing anti-war movement, but giving voice to it, even though he never sought to be a leader within the movement. He was in sync with civil rights activists like John Lewis who complained, "I don't see how President Johnson can send troops to Vietnam...to the Congo...to Africa and can't send troops to Selma, Alabama," [where the civil rights of Black people were systemically and violently denied civil rights on a daily basis.] He was in line with Martin L. King who boldly declared and preached that the war "morally and politically unjust." His refusal to participate in the bombing of thousands of innocent children and women in Vietnam and Cambodia was a part of many anti-war demonstrations in which Stokely Carmicheal described Selective Services as "white people sending black people to make war on yellow people in order to defend land they stole from red people."

Marqusee reminds us most in his book that boxing in this country was linked to issues of race and power representation. Thus, Black boxers and other sports figures like Jackie Robinson were measured, promoted, and criticized by how patriotic they were to the White power structure in this country. They were expected to be like Joe Louis who stood "as a role model--for white America, for the black middle class and for much of the left--by enlisting for military service in World War II," or an anti-communist like Robinson. But Ali becomes a bug in the system. Guided by Black nationalist ideology of the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X specifically, Ali rewrote the script for how Black sports figures were to behave. He proclaimed, "I'm free to be what I want." But as Marqusee points and shows, "he did not invent himself out nothing. In his search for personal freedom he was propelled and guided by a wide array of interacting social forces." This search and influence is the heart of Marqussee's book.

I would imagine there's much that Marqusee leaves out his book. And at times he seems too apologetic about Ali's break with Malcolm X, his relationship with the conservative tide of the Nation of Islam, and the inherent contradictions between his religious convictions and his views about marriage. Marqusee could have also provided specific references for his research. His bibliography is simply not enough.

Despite these criticism, "Redemption Song" is a much needed work to offset efforts to depoliticize Ali's past. Read it before or after you see the movie.

This book is drivel - I know, I was there! The authors are a couple of north London supporters of the ultra left 'Labour Briefing' and their argument is, in short, that Labour lost because it was not left wing enough. Of course, today, they would not argue that Tony Blair moved Labour further left and so the vaccuity of their argument has been well and truely exposed. Don't waste your money on this book. For a frank description of the tragedy of 1992 read Philip Gould's Unfinished Revolution - and at least then you get to read of the sweet revenge on the Tories that was 1 May 1997.

Heffernan's work is well-researched and bold. A fine work of political science literature.

Heffernan's effort is well-researched and bold; a fine effort.