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Black Ball
- Author
- Theresa Runstedtler
- Narrator
- Xenia Willacey
- Publisher
- Hachette Audio
- Publish Date
- 7 March 2023
- Run Time
- 11 hours
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
A vital narrative history of 1970s pro basketball, and the Black players who shaped the NBA
Against a backdrop of ongoing resistance to racial desegregation and strident calls for Black Power, the NBA in the 1970s embodied the nation’s imagined descent into disorder. A new generation of Black players entered the league, among them Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Spencer Haywood, and the press and public were quick to blame this cohort for the supposed decline of pro-basketball, citing drugs, violence, and greed. Basketball became a symbol for post–civil rights America: the rules had changed, allowing more Black people onto the playing field, and now they were ruining everything.
Enter Black Ball, a gripping corrective in which scholar Theresa Runstedtler expertly rewrites basketball’s “Dark Ages.” Weaving together a deep knowledge of the game with incisive social analysis, Runstedtler argues that this much-maligned period was pivotal to the rise of the modern-day NBA.
Critics Review
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“Runstedtler’s superior storytelling, buoyed by expert research, casts a new light on the league’s complex history. This savvy reappraisal of the NBA’s tumultuous evolution soars.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Theresa Runstedtler
- Narrator
- Xenia Willacey
- Duration
- 11 hours
- Release Date
- 7 March 2023
- ISBN
- 9781549158483
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Hachette Audio
- Genre
- History of the Americas, Basketball, Ethnic studies
Synopsis
A vital narrative history of 1970s pro basketball, and the Black players who shaped the NBA Against a backdrop of ongoing resistance to racial desegregation and strident calls for Black Power, the NBA in the 1970s embodied the nation’s imagined descent into disorder. A new generation of Black players entered the league, among them Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Spencer Haywood, and the press and public were quick to blame this cohort for the supposed decline of pro-basketball, citing drugs, violence, and greed. Basketball became a symbol for post–civil rights America: the rules had changed, allowing more Black people onto the playing field, and now they were ruining everything.   Enter Black Ball, a gripping corrective in which scholar Theresa Runstedtler expertly rewrites basketball’s “Dark Ages.” Weaving together a deep knowledge of the game with incisive social analysis, Runstedtler argues that this much-maligned period was pivotal to the rise of the modern-day NBA.
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