From the author Robert Lipsyte calls the best young sportswriter in America, a rollicking, rebellious, mythbusting history of sports in America that puts politics in the ring with pop cultureIn this longwaited book from the rising superstar of sportswriting, whose blog Edge of Sports is read each week by thousands of people across the country, Dave Zirin offers a riotously entertaining chronicle of largerthanlife sporting characters and dramatic contests and what amounts to an alternative history of the United States as seen through the games its people played Through Zirins eyes, sports are never mere games, but a reflection of8213and spur toward8213the political conflicts that shape American society Half a century before Jackie Robinson was born, the black ballplayer Moses Fleetwood Walker brandished a revolver to keep racist fans at bay, then took his regular place in the lineup In the midst of the Depression, when almost no black athletes were allowed on the U S Olympic team, athletes held a Counter Olympics where a third of the participants were African American A Peoples History of Sports in the United States is replete with surprises for seasoned sports fans, while anyone interested in history will be amazed by the connections Zirin draws between politics and pop flies As Jeff Chang, author of Cant Stop Wont Stop, puts it, After you read him, youll never see sports the same way again