Create a flyer for "Race, Sport and Politics"

From tennis to soccer, basketball to boxing, football to golf, the visibility of black athletes within global popular culture is beyond dispute. Rejecting the view that the level playing field of sport provides compelling evidence that we have moved beyond the racial inequalities of the past, Race, Sport and Politics suggests instead that sport has long constituted an important site of struggle for racist and anti-racist projects alike, and that ideas about "the black athlete" persist as central to contemporary racial politics.

Ben Carrington's book makes a striking contribution to a critical understanding of the troubled relationship between sport and 'race'. In creating a rare discursive space from which 'the black athlete' can speak beyond the usual clichés, and challenging insidious essentialisms that aspire to be progressive, he demonstrates convincingly the deep influence of sport on contemporary racialised meanings and ideologies.

Despite the growth in scholarship on sport and culture in the last two decades, issues of race have received far less attention than is warranted. Ben Carrington's book Race Sport and Politics offers a valuable addition to the field. It is a fresh, lively and stimulating discussion that should constitute a key starting point for all lecturers, students and general readers with an interest in sport and culture.

An intense sociological engagement with the intersection of race sport and politics in twentieth century Britian and USA. Ben Carrington is a well-established and well-respected author in the areas of sociological theory, 'race', culture and sport and this book reflects his passion.

While Carrington throws up some excellent examples within his book, its best attribute is undoubtedly the depth and extent of his use of theory. He draws on a wide range of sociological theory and applies it in an illuminating fashion. In doing so, he throws light on under-investigated areas and shows up flaws in previous explanations, so that even readers with considerable expertise in the areas of the sociology and politics of sport cannot help but learn a great deal from this book.

The book's central argument is that sport is deeply implicated in the 'making and remaking of race beyond its own boundaries'. In this way an understanding of sporting culture enables us to grapple with the reproduction of race thinking and the wider operation of racism... One of the great merits of this book is that it does not focus on the obvious tired examples, and there is only passing discussion of Muhammad Ali or Tommie Smith and John Carlos' famous protest at the 1968 Mexico Olympics.

Ben Carrington merges in this book the areas of sport, ‘race’, politics and sociological theory. His approach reveals a very interesting viewpoint about the relations between sport and race, and its combined influence in the last century. In this sense, Carrington’s work goes beyond some of the traditional ways of thinking about race and sport... very useful for students, lecturers and general readers interested in cultural, historical and sociological issues related to sport and ‘race.

The overall strengths of this book are manifold. They are also greatly enhanced by the author's skilful creation of a discursive space in which 'race' is centralized as a key element in the making of modern sport and in shifting scholarly emphasis towards using sport as a site 'for the generation and not merely application of social theory'...