The Race Game: Sport and Politics in South Africa

by Douglas Booth, James Anthony Mangan (Series Editor), Boria Majumdar (Series Editor)

1999 North American Society for Sports History Book of the Year Douglas Booth looks at the role of sport in the fostering of a new national identity in South Africa. He analyzes the effect of the 30-year sport boycott but concludes that sport will never unite South Africans except in the most fleeting and superficial manner.

284 pages, Hardcover

First published April 30, 1998

Reviews

[Lauren S]

comprehensive narrative

[Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Those of us who a professional academic analysts of sport are often criticised for making into something more than it is – trivial, insignificance, meaningless (the very bases of sport's social significance). During apartheid era South Africa sport was at the centre of political debate, struggles, and national and international politics. Booth's excellent book takes us inside apartheid South Africa to tell the story of one of apartheid's most powerful political and cultural tools, and of the struggles to end a crime against humanity.