Don Bradman: Challenging the Myth

click here for more details, find new or used items	Brett Hutchins Our price £23.70 (£24.95) New from £23.70 Used from £231.80 Pages: 240 (Paperback) ISBN: 0521677769 Pub: Cambridge University Press Pub date: 2005-08-04 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 539171

Reader Reviews:

An outstanding analysis (by Chris Battle [...] ) (1/1 people found this helpful)

Following on in the tradition of CLR James' "Beyond a Boundary", Hutchins takes seriously the role and purpose of sport within human culture. Taking sport seriously means taking sporting icons seriously, and the discussion within this book looks at the place Donald Bradman holds within the culture of Australia. It is a tour de force in judicious and balanced judgements, and seeks to locate the significance of the principal beyond the usual areas of biographical convention. The connection drawn between the Liberal (though "small c" conservative) politicians Robert Menzies, John Howard and Bradman is important, especially for all those people who were greatly surprised when John Howard won re-election in Australia in 2004, and George W Bush won re-election later in the same year. As a genuine conservative cultural icon, Bradman's place in Australian culture can possibly be considered analagous to DiMaggio's in American culture, though to see how Bradman is much more important in the Australian context one must read Hutchins' book.

This is a serious, important work, and all credit to Cambridge University Press for challenging the conventions somewhat with their decision to publish. Sociological study of sport, when it moves away from the default whining of the relativistic Left, yields genuine insight into contemporary societies, and Hutchins' book is an outstanding example of this.

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