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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.357092
EAN num: 9780345426550
ISBN number: 034542655X
Label: Ballantine Books
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 560
Printing Date: September 01, 1998
Publishing house: Ballantine Books
Release Date: September 01, 1998
Sale Popularity Level: 315937
Studio: Ballantine Books
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
The extraordinary life of Jackie Robinson is illuminated as never before in this full-scale biography by Arnold Rampersad, who was chosen by Jack's widow, Rachel, to tell her husband's story, and was given unprecedented acess to his private papers. We are brought closer than we have ever been to the great ballplayer, a man of courage and quality who became a pivotal figure in the areas of race and civil rights.
Born in the rural South, the son of a sharecropper, Robinson was reared in southern California. We see him blossom there as a student-athlete as he struggled against poverty and racism to uphold the beliefs instilled in him by his mother--faith in family, education, America, and God.
We follow Robinson through World War II, when, in the very first wave of racial integration in the armed forces, he was commissioned as an officer, then court-martialed after refusing to move to the back of a bus. After he plays in the Negro National League, we watch the opening of an all-American drama as, late in 1945, Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers recognized Jack as the right player to break baseball's colour barrier--and the game was forever changed.
Jack's never-before-published letters open up his relationship with his family, especially his wife, Rachel, whom he married just as his perilous venture of integrating baseball began. Her memories are a major resource of the narrative as we learn about the severe harassment Robinson endured from teammates and opponents alike; about death threats and exclusion; about joy and remarkable success. We watch his courageous response to abuse, very first as a stoic endurer, then as a fighter who epitomized courage and defiance.
We see his growing friendship with white players like Pee Wee Reese and the grey teammates who followed in his footsteps, and his embrace by Brooklyn's fans. We follow his blazing career: 1947, Rookie of the Year; 1949, Most Valuable Player; six pennants in ten seasons, and 1962, induction into the Hall of Fame.
But sports were merely one aspect of his life. We see his business ventures, his leading role in the community, his early support of Martin Luther King Jr., his commitment to the civil rights movement at a crucial stage in its evolution; his controversial associations with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Humphrey, Goldwater, Nelson Rockefeller, and Malcolm X.
Rampersad's magnificent biography leaves us with an indelible image of a principled man who was passionate in his loyalties and opinions: a baseball player who could focus a crowd's attention as no one before or since; an activist at the crossroads of his people's struggle; a dedicated family man whose last years were plagued by illness and tragedy, and who died prematurely at fifty-two. He was a pathfinder, an American hero, and he now has the biography he deserves.
From the Hardcover edition.
Amazon.com Review:
In baseball and beyond, 1997 has been the year of Jackie Robinson, the 50th anniversary of his obliteration of the game's colour line, and a time to reflect on a marvelous man whose heroism and decency cut far beyond the foul lines. Arnold Rampersad, a Princeton professor who's edited the poetry of Langston Hughes and the essays of Richard Wright, and collaborated with tennis great Arthur Ashe on his powerful memoir Days of Grace, steps up to the plate here with the very first truly comprehensive Robinson biography. It's an important accomplishment, ripe with historical and social insight without losing sight of the human being at its core. Thoroughly researched--Rachel Robinson gave the author acess to her husband's personal papers--and filled with fascinating new detail, the book, like its subject, consistently takes the extra base, thrilling with its overall skill, depth, and perspective.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers -
After reading several excellent reviews of this book, I purchased it for
my nepbew's birthday. I have not read the book myself since I lived through that period.
Rated by buyers -
It was a year of Fire and also the year of Grace for Jackie Robinson!! It is an amazing book to read about a great person who changed history and loves baseball!! It is more than just baseball and it has so many things to show that shaped Jackie's life so much. It is also spiritual and emotional book that leaves you to become a stronger person to make a great difference in the world.
Rated by buyers -
I really liked this book and normally I dont like reading. Ijust wanted to keep reading to see what was going to happen next. I think Jackie Robinson is a vary good romodel because no matter what, you should never give up. Because Jackie never gave up he ended up being one of the best baseball players to ever play the game. But most of all he broke the colour code for all professional sports.
Rated by buyers -
This biography does an outstanding job of giving an overview of Robinson's life and times, from his early, awnry but talented years in Pasadena, through UCLA, then the military, and then the Brooklyn Dodgers and beyond. It paints a picture of a strong willed gentleman with enormous pride, dedicated to his family, and dedicated to the idea of racial integration and equality. The influences of his mother on his early, somewhat (understandably) confrontational character, that allowed him to ultimately be the individual who paired with Branch Rickey to integrate "America's Pastime" are clearly laid out.
Some reviewers have faulted the author for not being more interpretive of Robinson's politics - specifically, that he was a Nixon supporter in 1960 and a Rockefeller supporter in 1968 (while also being a strong supporter of Civil Rights, active in almost every civil rights organization) and Humphrey supporter as well. I think the book lays out all the facts for the reader to see for themselves. Robinson's coming of age - in an era when a Dixiecrat from a Jim Crow state (LBJ) led the passage of the Civil Rights Act - was a time of a shifting political landscape that didn't settle out until near his death (he also broke badly with Nixon later in Nixon's career). The Republican party's mantra of self-reliance, and Robinson's determination to succeed in business in the same way he did in sports, made his attraction to the party not a big leap; the alienation of this country's African American establishment from big business was not a pre-ordained fact in the time Robinson lived.
Finally, Robinson's own family struggles were also a reflection of the confusing and troubling times in which he lived.
Robinson died too young for us all. This is a great book and I would highly recommend it..
Rated by buyers -
i'm not particularly interested in baseball, but i am particularly interested in American history from the human perspective. i could have read a much more dry account of the turmoils that dominated American race relations throughout the middle of the 20th century, but instead i've read this fascinating account of those terrible, backward days from the perspective of a true pioneer, Mr. Jackie Robinson.
of course he is looked back on now as a symbol, a mythological figure. i always knew peripherally of Jackie as the same thing most people do: the very first grey man to play major league baseball, a step forward & up in the painful struggle of the times. but this book presents him as a human being, a fallible man who lived most of his life not on the baseball field, but in a relentless pursuit of his ideals and desire for a better life for himself and everyone around him.
the reviewer before me questions the biographer's lack of judgement of Robinson. i am curious as to why he feels Rampersad should insert his own analysis; the biography presents analyses of Robinson by many of Robinson's contemporaries, and then presents the recorded facts available to clarify incidents & statements. yes, this is an intensely personal biography, perhaps too personal in places. it is very much centered on Jackie's private correspondences. it is absolutely told from Robinson's persepctive, as best can be reconstructed from his widow Rachel & the papers he left behind, but it feels very honest, not at all like an airbrushed bit of hero-polishing. it is in places very blunt about Jackie's shortcomings as observed by his peers & contemporaries.
before i stretch this out any longer, i'll just say that this is the most engrossing biography i can ever recall having read. it's an account of a fascinating life in an amazingly recent time, in an America that seems so long ago but is still discouragingly recent. readers will learn not just about Jackie Robinson, but about two American eras as well.
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