Learie Constantine and Race Relations in Britain and the Empire

Learie Constantine and Race Relations in Britain and the Empire PDF Author: Jeffrey Hill
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 135006985X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Book Description
Who was Learie Constantine? And what can he tell us about the politics of race and race relations in 20th-century Britain and the Empire? Through examining the life, times and opinions of this Trinidadian cricketer-turned-politician, Learie Constantine and Race Relations in Britain and the Empire explores the centrality of race in British politics and society. Unlike conventional biographical studies of Constantine, this unique approach to his life, and the racially volatile context in which it was lived, moves away from the 'good man' narrative commonly attributed to his rise to pre-eminence as a spokesman against racial discrimination and as the first black peer in the House of Lords. Through detailing how Constantine's idea of 'assimilation' was criticized, then later rejected by successive activists in the politics of race, Jeff rey Hill off ers an alternative and more sophisticated analysis of Constantine's contributions to, and complex relationship with, the fight against racial inequalities inherent in British domestic and imperial society.

Learie Constantine

Learie Constantine PDF Author: Peter Mason
Publisher: Signal Books
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Book Description
Sir Learie Constantine was an extraordinary figure by any yardstick. One of the greatest and most popular of all West Indian cricketers, he left the game to become, among other things, a barrister, cabinet minister, diplomat, broadcaster, author and journalist. The first black man to enter the House of Lords, he was a tireless campaigner for racial equality and West Indian self-government whose forthright response to racial discrimination led to a celebrated legal case that laid the foundations for Britains first Race Relations Act. Above all, however, he was an immensely popular public figure throughout his life.

Connie

Connie PDF Author: Harry Pearson
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
ISBN: 1408705710
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 263

Book Description
Winner of the MCC Book of the Year Award His father was a first-class cricketer, his grandfather was a slave. Born in rural Trinidad in 1901, Learie Constantine was the most dynamic all-round cricketer of his age (1928-1939) when he played Test cricket for the West Indies and club cricket for Nelson. Few who saw Constantine in action would ever forget the experience. As well as the cricketing genius that led to Constantine being described as 'the most original cricketer of his time', Connie illuminates the world that he grew up in, a place where the memories of slavery were still fresh and where a peculiar, almost obsessive, devotion to 'Englishness' created a society that was often more British than Britain itself. Harry Pearson looks too at the society Constantine came to in England, which he would embrace as much as it embraced him: the narrow working-class world of the industrial North during a time of grave economic depression. Connie reveals how a flamboyant showman from the West Indies actually dovetailed rather well in a place where local music-hall stars such as George Formby, Frank Randle and Gracie Fields were fêted as heroes, and how Lancashire League cricket fitted into this world of popular entertainment. Connie tells an uplifting story about sport and prejudice, genius and human decency, and the unlikely cultural exchange between two very different places - the tropical island of Trinidad and the cloth-manufacturing towns of northern England - which shared the common language of cricket.

Cricket, Literature and Culture

Cricket, Literature and Culture PDF Author: Anthony Bateman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317158040
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 371

Book Description
In his important contribution to the growing field of sports literature, Anthony Bateman traces the relationship between literary representations of cricket and Anglo-British national identity from 1850 to the mid 1980s. Examining newspaper accounts, instructional books, fiction, poetry, and the work of editors, anthologists, and historians, Bateman elaborates the ways in which a long tradition of literary discourse produced cricket's cultural status and meaning. His critique of writing about cricket leads to the rediscovery of little-known texts and the reinterpretation of well-known works by authors as diverse as Neville Cardus, James Joyce, the Great War poets, and C.L.R. James. Beginning with mid-eighteenth century accounts of cricket that provide essential background, Bateman examines the literary evolution of cricket writing against the backdrop of key historical moments such as the Great War, the 1926 General Strike, and the rise of Communism. Several case studies show that cricket simultaneously asserted English ideals and created anxiety about imperialism, while cricket's distinctively colonial aesthetic is highlighted through Bateman's examination of the discourse surrounding colonial cricket tours and cricketers like Prince Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji of India and Sir Learie Constantine of Trinidad. Featuring an extensive bibliography, Bateman's book shows that, while the discourse surrounding cricket was key to its status as a symbol of nation and empire, the embodied practice of the sport served to destabilise its established cultural meaning in the colonial and postcolonial contexts.

A War to the Knife

A War to the Knife PDF Author: Richard Bentley
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1789017491
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
The book tells the story of two test match series: England vs West Indies in 1933 and West Indies vs England in 1935. The England team was one of the best to ever play the game. Their side including: Herbert Sutcliffe, Wally Hammond Harold Larwood and captained by Douglas Jardine had just battered Australia by 4:1 in the infamous bodyline series. Australians though regarded the bodyline series as a travesty: what was supposed to be a gentle game for gentlemen had been turned into a struggle for dominance characterised by violence, intimidation and injury. The West Indian team, made up of from the populations of Britain’s scattered possessions in the Caribbean and divided by race as well as island loyalties, seemingly, had little chance against Jardine’s juggernaut. But cricket in the West Indies was more than just a game, the cricket field was a place where the island’s black population could meet their white compatriots as equals in competition, competitions they often won. West Indian cricket was an exciting new thing, suffused with athletic excellence, passion, the desire for dignity and financial security. Could men like: Learie Constantine, Manny Martindale and George Headley take West Indian cricket out into the world and beat the best the British had to offer?

Liberation Cricket

Liberation Cricket PDF Author: Hilary Beckles
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719043154
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 436

Book Description
Of the global community of cricketers, the West Indians are, arguably, the most well-known and feared. This book shows how this tradition of cricketing excellence and leadership emerged, and how it contributed to the rise of West Indian nationalism and independence.

Sport and Revolutionaries

Sport and Revolutionaries PDF Author: John Nauright
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317519485
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 144

Book Description
This collection examines the role of sport in the lives of key revolutionary thinkers and leftist activists. In contrast to those who take a more romantic view of sport and believe in its apolitical nature, the eight essays help make clear how sport has served as a site for political activism and the revolutionary thought and practices of such individuals as Henry Mayers Hyndman, Vladimer Ilyich Lenin, Fidel Castro, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, Harry Edwards, Charles Perkins, and Darius Dhlomo. Written by noted scholars with long publication lists, the essays in turn provide insights into the close connection among sport, politics, and revolutionary movements in countries varying widely in their history, governmental policies, and treatment of individuals and groups. Taken as a whole, the essays, which adopt a very broad definition of revolutions, are written with the hope of encouraging more serious thought regarding the transformative potential of sports which can be both individually liberating and responsible for co-opting the lower classes and helping maintain power among the political and economic elite in capitalistic as well as socialist societies. This bookw as published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

The Global Sports Arena

The Global Sports Arena PDF Author: John Bale
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135195862
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 302

Book Description
Athletes are on the move. In some sports this involves labour, movement from one country to another within or between continents. In other sports, athletes assume an almost nomadic migratory lifestyle, constantly on the move from one sport festival to another. In addition, it appears that sport migration is gaining momentum and that it is closely interwoven with the broader process of global sport development taking place in the late twentieth century.

The Development of West Indies Cricket, Vol. 2

The Development of West Indies Cricket, Vol. 2 PDF Author: Hilary Beckles
Publisher: Pluto Press
ISBN: 9780745314624
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Book Description
This volume covers the "third rising" of West Indies cricket. As the sport becomes ever more commercialized, large amounts of money have established sponsorship & support systems to give cricketers around the world every possible advantage. Beckles assesses what impact the globalization of cricket has had on the cricketers of the Caribbean. He also describes the emergence of what he argues is a debilitating sub-nationalism in the West Indies, & the effect this has had on the game, & the prospect for integrating West Indian nationhood in the twenty-first century.

British Autobiographies

British Autobiographies PDF Author: William Matthews
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520315227
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 390

Book Description
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1955.