Cobb: A Biography

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Not long before his death, Ty Cobb, as complex and haunted a human being as ever stepped onto a diamond, tapped a young writer named Al Stump to collaborate with him on his autobiography. The result, My Life in Baseball: The True Record, never came close to reaching first base; with Cobb (holder of the game's highest lifetime batting average and lowest lifetime reputation) calling the signals, it was an antiseptic whitewash, as false as its titular claim would have you believe otherwise. Hidden between the lines was the living hell that Cobb--reclusive, bitter, ravaged with cancer, in great pain, and shunned by the baseball community--put Stump through to make sure his demon-filled story was properly sanitized.

Some 30 years later, Stump brilliantly wrought his revenge with the best tool a writer can wield: absolute honesty. In Cobb, he rectifies his earlier cover-up and paints an unforgettable portrait of an unforgettable character: The Georgia Peach--pits and all. Not only does Stump painstakingly assemble the disparate pieces of Cobb's tangled personality and storied career, he also recounts in scrupulous detail the literal wild ride that comprised his months in the company of the dying baseball legend. It is, from its opening inscription ("To get along with me," Cobb told Stump, "don't increase my tension"), a tour de force, as good a sports biography as exists, and an altogether riveting telling of a riveting life. --Jeff Silverman

Book Description

A New York Times Notable Book; Spitball Award for Best Baseball Book of 1994; Basis for a major Hollywood motion picture. Now in paperback, the biography that baseball fans all across the country have been talking about. Al Stump redefined America's perception of one of its most famous sports heroes with this gripping look at a man who walked the line between greatness and psychosis. Based on Stump's interviews with Ty Cobb while ghostwriting the Hall-of-Famer's 1961 autobiography, this award-winning new account of Cobb's life and times reveals both the darkness and the brilliance of the "Georgia Peach." "The most powerful baseball biography I have read."--Roger Kahn, author of THE BOYS OF SUMMER

Customer Reviews:

A product of his time, and place.............2007-08-27

Those who saw the movie "Cobb" know that it centers on the last year and a half of Ty Cobb's life, when he hired sportswriter Al Stump to help him write an autobiography [though Cobb was a highly literate man, who really didn't need a ghostwriter]. Ty Cobb was dying, and knew it; cancer and diabetes were about finished with him, and he wanted to tell his story while he could. This is Al Stump's story of that experience.

Ty Cobb was a strange, difficult, complex, man. His manner was not designed to make him well liked, but he really didn't care. His fellow Tigers may not have cared for him, but they were well aware that he was the greatest player in the game, and that he gave 100% on the field. Some of the popular stories [the sharpened spikes, and, until cancer got the best of him, the drinking] are lies, but the statistics aren't. Cobb always saw himself as an outsider, a member of an aristocratic Southern family, who really didn't belong.

Cobb and Stump had quite a time, and Cobb's book did get written. They visited casinos, churches, the Hall of Fame, Cobb's daughter [who rejected him, though she was willing to have his money after he died], and got Ty his medical care. Stump stayed till the end. Al discovered that Ty was financially supporting a number of old ballplayers, and their widows...he turned Christ's admonition around, publicizing his bad deeds, and keeping the good secret [the support was anonymous; Cobb's lawyer hired another lawyer to pay it].

A psychiatrist could have a grand time with Ty Cobb. PTSD? Probably...what his Mom did to his Dad would throw anybody for a loop. Cobb did give his mother all the love money could buy, but even that may have been more than she deserved. He took chances, from the way he played ball, to his Army service as a Captain in the Poison Gas Division in WWI...no soft job in Special Services for Ty Cobb.

This is a fine book about a very difficult subject...brilliant, hard driven, complex, Ty Cobb was the greatest baseball player that ever lived. He may have had some faults as a person, but NOT as a ballplayer. You can't understand Ty Cobb in one book any more than you can Thomas Jefferson [there actually are parallels]...Al Stump obviously disliked his subject, but his skill and honesty are enough to make the greatness shine thru. Read this, but also read Charles Alexander, and Cobb's own book.

Relentless and Revealing.......2007-04-14

This is a searing biography of baseball legend Ty Cobb (1887-1961). As the author shows Cobb was a superbly talented and intelligent ballplayer, and he still has the highest lifetime batting average (.367). Cobb was also intensely competitive, and so mean and fast-tempered that even roughneck players feared and detested him. The author examines Cobb's upbringing in Georgia (including his father's being shot dead by his mother) and his long career (1905-1928) in baseball. Readers learn of Cobb's many batting and stolen base titles, his unproven involvement in a 1919 fix, and his years as player-manager for the Detroit Tigers. Cobb was careful with his dollars and blessed with investment savvy that made him rich - players calling him "penny pincher" had an instant fight on their hands. The book also takes a brief look at his life after his playing days ended.

As many know, a dying Cobb hired the author to write his autobiography - and that first book said what Cobb wanted. This second and more honest effort appeared three decades later, and is far from pretty. We see Cobb as a volatile racist lout, unpopular as a player, and shunned in his later years by both his family and by those struglling ex-players that the financially generous Cobb helped. This second biography is relentless, revealing, and not for those with a weak stomach.

Could not put this book down! Incredible book on one of the greatest!.......2006-04-03

"Cobb" by Al Stump: This is THE book that made me truly appreciate the game of baseball and Ty Cobb. I read all 400 plus pages in three days of reading and it was very difficult to put down at the end of the night. Do not confuse this book by Al Stump with the one he co-authored with Ty Cobb titled "Ty Cobb My Life in Baseball." That book was more of a PR campaign for Ty Cobb to help improve his image in the public eye. "Cobb" however is 100% pure, raw, and insane Ty Cobb. It is within this book that you will learn why so many people say that Ty Cobb still is the best that ever was in baseball. You will also learn why so many players and fans thought he was possessed with the "furies"; in fact many questioned his sanity. Ty Cobb hit .367 over 24 seasons, won over a dozen batting titles and was the first ball player to ever be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. I was surprised to learn that Ty Cobb had founded a hospital system, an educational foundation and helped down-and-out ballplayers. Truly one of the best baseball books I have ever read. Robert Pedersen www.fatherachildsright.org

Man is the Bastard.......2005-12-24

An amazing portrait of the greatest baseball player who ever lived. The movie with Tommy Lee Jones was good, but this is far more raw and riveting.

Good Book About a Great Ballplayer and a Terrible Man.......2004-12-23

Al Stump, who spent nearly a year with Ty Cobb near the end of Cobb's life and wrote My Life in Baseball: The True Record with him, is the natural choice as his biographer. He does a fine job here. While the earlier book is simply a narration of incidents whose narration is inevitably distorted in Cobb's favor, this book is an earnest attempt to present a fair picture of its subject.

Stump bends over backwards to be fair to the eminently dislikeable Cobb; indeed, that is the book's primary fault. For example, on several occasions, the book mentions Cobb's excellence as a defensive center fielder, yet statistics posted early in the book give his lifetime fielding percentage as .961, with 274 errors in 3,033 games. Cobb clearly won games with his bat and legs, but he lost them with his glove and arm. Stump also mentions the oft-narrated incident in 1925 in which the thirty-eight-year old Cobb allegedly told two sportswriters before a game that he would abandon his hands-apart hitting style and attempt to hit home runs. He went six-for-six in the game, with three home runs and a double. The next day he hit two home runs and a single. The natural question to ask is why, if Cobb could get nine hits, including five home runs, in nine at-bats while trying to hit home runs, he didn't stick with it, since his career average was approximately three hits in eight at bats, none of them home runs. Is the story apocryphal? Did Cobb simply know that the starting pitchers for the next two games were pitchers against which he had had unusual success in the past? Stump never even asks the question.

There are other flaws. Stump spends the first 400 pages of the book on the first forty-two years of Cobb's life, covering the period from his birth to the end of his major league career, but only twenty on the remaining thirty-three. Of course, Cobb would be of little interest had he not been a great baseball player, but, given that Cobb was clearly seriously mentally ill, it would have been a good idea, I think, to spend more time on, for example, the causes of the break-ups of his two marriages. Stump, moreover, calls Cobb psychotic in several places in the book. It would also, I think, have been a good idea for him to consult with one or more mental health professionals for a more precise diagnosis.

These, though, are minor reservations about a book that held my interest from the first page to the last. All serious baseball fans will want to read this book, and even many of those who are not very interested in baseball will find it interesting.

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The life of Harry Houdini, the world famous "master mystifier"

Harry Houdini (DK Biography)
Vicki Cobb
Manufacturer: DK CHILDREN
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0756612454

Book Description

DK¹s acclaimed DK Biography series tackles two of history¹s most colorful figures in Harry Houdini and Albert Einstein. Perfect for book reports or summer reading, the DK Biography series brings a new clarity and narrative voice to history¹s most colorful figures.

Customer Reviews:

The life of Harry Houdini, the world famous "master mystifier".......2006-07-02

This DK Biography of Harry Houdini is described as "A photographic story of a life," but I can tell you up front that it is not a collection of photographs with captions but an illustrated biography that is comparable to other volumes put out by this company. That means you will find over 100 photographs, artwork and artifacts, including photograph of his famous escapes, posters from throughout his career, and a look at things like his collection of handcuffs. For somebody like me who knows most of what they know about Houdini from the movie with Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh (and whatever television documentaries I might stumble across from time to time), this book is quite educational. Vicki Cobb tells about the life of Harry Houdini so it reads like an American success story. Born Ehrich Weiss, the kid who will become Harry Houdini leaves home at the age of 12, gets bored working in a factory, and starts practicing coin trips in his spare time. Eventually the son of poor immigrants would be selling out the theaters of Europe as the greatest magician and escape artist in the world.

To set the stage for Houdini's life, Cobb begins with a prologue, "Failure Means a Drowning Death," that talks about his performance in St. Louis, Missouri, on January 27, 1908. Having escaped from the local police station the day before, Houdini performs his "Death-Defying Mystery: Escape from a galvanized iron can filled with water and secured by massive locks." By the time you get to the part where you wonder how he did it, Cobb has you interested in how Houdini became the greatest magician of all time. Then we get to the fact of his life, with the early chapter devoted to how the Weiss family came to America, what Show Business was like in the 1890s when Weiss got started, and how the young Houdini learned his trade as a magician and taking his name from Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin, his hero.

Cobb pays attention to how Houdini developed his career and you should pay attention to all of the posters that document his career: they start off with lots of text and hyperbole, but by the time he becomes famous as the "master mystifier" basically he just needed "HOUDINI" in large print. So Houdini goes from "Dime Museum Harry," to "The King of Handcuffs" and then the "Self-Liberator" who conquered Europe at the end of the century. Cobb highlights a quotation from Houdini: "The whole secret is getting the first hand free; after that it is all plain sailing." The glory days of Houdini cover him as a great self-promoter, but also pay attention to his family and his work as a scholar and author in the field of magic.

The final chapters looked at how Houdini started taking risks to come up with bigger thrills for his audiences by doing dangerous things like jumping into rivers and flying an airplane. This goes hand in hand with his great creativity (we get to the Water Torture Cell from the end of the movie "Houdini" at this point). The last stage of Houdini's career deals with not only his death defying feats, but also his debunking of mediums ("The Dead Don't Talk"), which became part of his legacy when he died on Halloween in 1926 from a ruptured appendix. Houdini had told his wife that if it were possible to speak to her from beyond the grave, he would do so, and for ten years his widow Bess attended seances on Halloween to hear the code they had agreed on as proof she was hearing from him. But it never came.

If you want to know how Houdini did it, then you will be happy to know several of his best-known tricks are explained (but not all of them) in this informative biography. Cobb emphasizes Houdini's showmanship as well as his creativity in being important to the act so young readers can better appreciate the career of somebody they will never see perform. The back of the book has a two-page timeline of key events in Houdini's life, a Bibliography of more than a dozen books, a Works Cited list, and six Webs ties that will provide more information about Houdini as well as a trio of documentaries about the master mystifier (he felt he was more than a magician and therefore favored this appellation).

Arctic Homestead: The True Story of One Family's Survival and Courage in the Alaskan Wilds

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I was very disappointed in this book
Great READ!
The Artic Homestead
Great Book
Arctic Homestead

Arctic Homestead: The True Story of One Family's Survival and Courage in the Alaskan Wilds
Norma Cobb , Charles W. Sasser , and Charles Sasser
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0312283792

Book Description

In 1973, Norma Cobb, her husband Lester, and the their five children, the oldest of whom was nine-years-old and the youngest, twins, barely one, pulled up stakes in the Lower Forty-eight and headed north to Alaska to follow a pioneer dream of claiming land under the Homestead Act. The only land available lay north of Fairbanks near the Arctic Circle where grizzlies outnumbered humans twenty to one. In addition to fierce winters and predatory animals, the Alaskan frontier drew the more unsavory elements of society's fringes. From the beginning, the Cobbs found themselves pitted in a life or death feud with unscrupulous neighbors who would rob from new settlers, attempt to burn them out, shoot them, and jump their claim.The Cobbs were chechakos, tenderfeet, in a lost land that consumed even toughened settlers. Everything, including their 'civilized' past, conspired to defeat them. They constructed a cabin and the first snow collapsed the roof. They built too close to the creek and spring breakup threatened to flood them out. Bears prowled the nearby woods, stalking the children, and Lester Cobb would leave for months at a time in search of work.But through it all, they survived on the strength of Norma Cobb---a woman whose love for her family knew no bounds and whose courage in the face of mortal danger is an inspiration to us all. This is her story.

Download Description

MINOOK is an adventure memoir and survival tale; this is the personal narrarive of Norma Cobb, who in 1973 became the last woman to homestead in the Alaskan wilderness.

Customer Reviews:

I was very disappointed in this book.......2007-08-02

I was very disappointed in this book. While the first half is entertaining and interesting, it eventually became offensive to me for a number of reasons. The author, Norma Cobb, refers to herself (in the section about working on the pipeline) as "not unattractive" but then later goes on to categorize Susan Butcher as being not much to look at. Well, from looking at the pictures, I might agree with Norma's appraisal of herself, (though it does sound boastful for someone living in Athapaskan country, where the Natives do not boast about themselves), but to denigrate Susan's looks is simply tacky. Many believe that Susan Butcher was a very attractive, natural and wholesome looking woman. Further, when Norma comments on the passes made towards her by another musher, Rick Swenson, well - that is equally tacky, particularly with a well known individual. Unfortunately, these things, along with other things such as poor grammar and incorrect usage of the English language point to someone who appears to be both rather full of herself and disdainful of people with more education. It is a shame that what was essentially a good story had these elements that detracted from it. I was also bothered by the characterization of others in this book as they did not, somehow, "ring true." This assessment was solidified for me when I read Ken Nelson's review of the book. I normally do not cull books from my personal library but this book won't be kept.

Great READ!.......2007-07-06

This was a great book that was easy to read and hard to put down.

The Artic Homestead.......2007-05-13

If you are looking for a book about homesteading in alaska, this is the book. Of all the books that I have read about alaska so far this is the best. If you are an alaskan enthusist like myself you should love this book. Lee from Georgia

Great Book.......2007-04-25

If you're looking for a well-written captivating book - look no further. This book will only last you a couple days or less. The flow of the book allows the reader to quickly get amerced in the personal voyage of the writer and when you come up for air, the book is over.

Arctic Homestead.......2007-03-30

Great book! If you like to read about the outdoors and tough living conditions, you will love this. You can't put it down.

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Cobb on Wagner: In the Footsteps of "The Glory of Their Times"
An epic true life tale of how he became one of the greatest baseball players of his day
An epic true life tale of how he became one of the greatest baseball players of his day

Honus Wagner: On His Life & Baseball

Manufacturer: Sports Media Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1587263084

Customer Reviews:

Cobb on Wagner: In the Footsteps of "The Glory of Their Times".......2006-06-30

A member of the board of the Ty Cobb Museum in Royston, Georgia, and a "distant Georgia cousin" of the other early 20th Century player widely thought of at the time as being the game's greatest player, William R. "Ron" Cobb has just edited an invaluable work on the teller of tall tales and possessor of a career 150 OPS+... Honus Wagner. "Honus Wagner On His Life & Baseball" is the Flying Dutchman in his own words... as originally published as a newspaper serial in the Los Angeles Times from December 13, 1923 to January 23, 1924. In effect an oral history originally written and published less than seven years after Wagner retired, it gives us a first-person insight into the great Pirate star, an insight that has generally been missing from history, due to Wagner's own reticence while he was playing, and his tendency to gild the lily in his later years. This then, is Wagner on Wagner, at a time when he was most likely to give us a straight story.

Although the 1920s were the heyday of the ghostwritten column, Cobb states strongly his opinion that the serial's words are Wagner's own. "I based this [opinion] on the overall tone and use of folksy and `down to earth' words and phrases," he explains. "The tone and flow sounds much like the spoken word, which indicates to me that a professional writer likely did not write this - at least not on his own. At the worst, I feel that Wagner might have dictated this and let an editor transcribe in into printable text. Even in this case, the text would be Wagner's story in `his own words.'"

And what a story it is. An historical bonanza, not just about the National League's greatest player, and some of his contemporaries, but also about the game as it was played during the first 50 or so years of his life. In 40 installments Wagner tells of everything from his early, minor league years in baseball, to his extensive thoughts on the skills and strategies of the early 20th Century game, to his admiration for Barney Dreyfuss, to the "good old days," to his thoughts on some of the greats he played with and against. And, of course, like practically every other old timer, he picks his All-Star teams. As with every oral history, Wagner's story is colored by his prejudices, especially when he talks about how the game had changed from when he broke in until 1924, but that hardly makes him unique among baseball storytellers. Indeed, much of Wagner's copy reads like it could well have come out of "The Glory of Their Times," except this is a total of 185 pages (with some marvelous photos) all from one exceptional player.

To cherry pick just a few of Honus' more interesting stories... Fred Lieb told the sad tale of the Philadelphia National League club sending a sore-armed pitcher named Con Lucid to scout the Paterson, New Jersey club in 1897, specifically to scout shortstop Honus Wagner. According to Lieb, Lucid thought the big Honus was too clumsy, and recommended they sign Kid Elberfeld instead, thus blowing the Phillies' chance to have a Wagner/Lajoie double play combination. A good story, but, according to Wagner, not exactly true. Honus' version is even better... no less a figure than Phillies' manager George Stallings was scouting him, and it was Stallings who was unimpressed. Seems as if Wagner was playing the outfield that day, and threw a couple of balls into the stands behind the plate. "I wouldn't give that big bum his carfare from here to Philadelphia," is how Honus quotes Stallings' reply to Patterson's Ed Barrow asking what the Phillies would give for Wagner.

Wagner's contract was sold later in 1897 to Louisville, enabling Honus to be present when the one and only Rube Waddell broke into the majors. In an installment entitled "The Bug Enters Baseball - at 2 a.m.," Wagner tells how Waddell insisted on meeting his new manager, Fred Clarke, when he arrived at the Colonels' hotel in Washington at 2 a.m. He pestered the night man enough to find out Clarke's room number, and proceeded to wake up the manager, who then suggested that Waddell needed to meet the rest of the team. The Rube went around to everyone else's room, pounding on doors and waking the entire team, with one exception. Waddell came back to Clarke's room at 4 a.m., not because the rest of the team wanted to lynch him (a possibility) but because the guy in room 128 wouldn't get up, and the Rube thought something was wrong. What was wrong was that William Hoy was in 128, and since he was deaf, he couldn't hear Waddell pounding on the door. (Actually, Waddell expert Dan O'Brien says that this story IS fiction.)

Although there is a tendency to think that Wagner could hit any pitcher who ever lived, he tells of one hurler, Jack Taylor, who gave him more trouble than any other. So much trouble, that Wagner once turned around and batted left-handed against the right-handed Taylor. Although Wagner says he "swung like a woman" he also punched the ball over the first base bag for a double. Other anecdotes include the time Jack Murray of the Giants made a game-saving catch by a flash of lightning, a bit on the game (and the box score) that clinched the 1901 pennant, Bill Klem tossing Clarke from a game for saying he was "a model umpire," and much more.

Wagner's anecdotes, both about himself and other players, are enlightening and amusing. No, he doesn't tell all, like exactly what he was up to in his 1908 holdout, but this is still a find that also includes a vast amount of what was called in those days "inside baseball." That is, how to play the game. Seems as if Honus coached baseball at Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University) after he retired, and he still had all of his old class notes around. Presenting a much different side than his standard, somewhat shallow though pleasant public persona, Wagner shares considerable insight, as he had done with his players, on everything from how to play shortstop to defensive signals to nine very specific points on the hit and run. This was no dumb jock and storyteller, but a deep thinker about the intricacies of the game.

While Wagner's story is rightfully deserving of kudos, so is Cobb's work to bring it forth. A SABR member, a Deadball Era expert, and a graduate of Georgia Tech (he really should be called "Dr. Cobb," since he has a doctorate in Engineering), Cobb is no rookie at enlightening the reading public on stars of that era. He has previously published two autobiographical works on The Georgia Peach, "Busting `Em" and "Memoirs of Twenty Years in Baseball." When asked about the nature of his relation to old Tyrus, he says, "I was raised in Atlanta with the family story that we were related to the `great one.' But, no one ever told me exactly how. Some in my family believe we descend from the half brother of Ty Cobb's great grandfather in North Carolina."

When Ron changed his historical focus from Tyrus to Honus, he undertook a big project, having to re-type the manuscript from 80 year-old printed microfilm images of the Los Angeles Times. As anyone who has ever done microfilm research knows, 80 year-old images are not the easiest medium to work with. The image that comes from this is of Cobb hunched over a microfilm reader, trying to decipher smudged and almost illegible newsprint from the Roaring Twenties - a feat that only an historian of Cobb's knowledge could accomplish with success. As hard to read as the old Times were, Cobb had to use his own, independent understanding on the context to make sense out of some of the more obtuse parts.

Ron Cobb's hard work should not go unrewarded. In a very real sense, "Honus Wagner On His Life & Baseball" is as valuable and entertaining to the baseball historian, and the average baseball fan, as "The Glory of Their Times."

An epic true life tale of how he became one of the greatest baseball players of his day.......2006-06-11

Honus Wagner On His Life And Baseball deftly edited by William R. Cobb is an intriguing tale of Honus Wagner's remarkable career in baseball where he was known as "The Flying Dutchman". Following Honus from the beginning of his career in 1897, Honus Wagner On His Life And Baseball informatively carries readers through an epic true life tale of how he became one of the greatest baseball players of his day, playing seventeen consecutive seasons, and retaining a .300 batting average the whole time. Honus Wagner On His Life And Baseball is very highly recommended for all baseball enthusiasts and those intrigued by the accomplished life of baseball legend Honus Wagner.

An epic true life tale of how he became one of the greatest baseball players of his day.......2006-06-11

Average customer rating:

Deftly researched and highly readable
TY COBB BY CHARLES C. ALEXANDER (1984)
The true historical record of Cobb
A fascinating biograph about baseball's legend
Excellent

Ty Cobb (Sport in American Life)
Charles C. Alexander
Manufacturer: Southern Methodist University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0870745093

Book Description

Probably the most volatile, fear-inspiring presence in baseball history, Ty Cobb was one of the most brilliant players in the game during his twenty-four-year career in the major leagues. Drawing on primary sources and personal interviews, Alexander brings Ty Cobb and his era vividly to life, showing the profound changes that took place in the sport of baseball during the tumultuous first half of the twentieth century.

"Impressive. A fascinating analysis of Cobb's personality."-The New York Times

"Alexander has performed that magical feat of creating Ty Cobb, warts and all. A wonderful, wonderful book."-Newsday

"Ty Cobb is a sociology of a time as well as a biography of the greatest and nastiest player of them all."-Stephen Jay Gould, The New York Review of Books

"Impeccably researched . . . reads like a novel. A fine book."-Lawrence Ritter, author of The Glory of Their Times

Originally published by Oxford University Press in 1984.

Customer Reviews:

Deftly researched and highly readable.......2006-10-04

Now featuring a new afterword by author Charles C. Alexander (Professor Emeritus Of History at Ohio University), Ty Cobb is the classic biography of one of baseball's most brilliant, volatile, and intimidating presences. An inset section of black-and-white photographic plates illustrate this chronicle of not only Ty Cobb's robust life, but also the startling transformations taking place during twentieth-century baseball. A fascinating, deftly researched and highly readable "must-have" for fans of baseball legends.

TY COBB BY CHARLES C. ALEXANDER (1984).......2004-02-24

TY COBB BY CHARLES C. ALEXANDER (1984)

Audio book review

Charles C. Alexander's Ty Cobb is an illuminating review of the legendary early Twentieth Century baseball superstar. This audio book, read by Walter Zimmerman, is written more like historical biography than a baseball book
Alexander dispels many long-held Cobb myths. Cobb was mean and nasty, but not nearly the ogre of legend. In fact, Cobb was a devout Christian (Baptist), very well spoken, a man who cared about his public image, and engaged himself in many acts of on and off-field kindness. Caricatured as a savage racist by revisionist history, Cobb actually was kindly in his relations with the many black people he grew up with in Georgia, some of whom worked for his family. He had no patience for blacks he considered uppity. He was not Branch Rickey, but he was not the Grand Dragon of the K.K.K., either. Miserly? Sometimes, but without fanfare he took care of players who had hit the skids. A spikes-sharpened demon? You bet, but Ty also shook hands with his combatants after the dust settled, and performed various acts of dovish peacemaking for the benefit of hostile fans.
Alexander is not a psychiatrist, but it is obvious that the fact that Cobb's mother killed his father in what may not have been an accident, during an incident that occurred because Mr. Cobb suspected Mrs. Cobb of having an affair, shaped Ty's combative nature. What has been lost over the years is that Cobb became friendly with Babe Ruth (common legend holding that he always hated him). Cobb was a shrewd millionaire investor who never needed to work after baseball, therefore separating himself from regular contact with people while living in huge mansions that were too big for him, after his wife left. Most telling is the relationship Cobb had with his two male children. He raised them strictly, and because of baseball travel left much of the child rearing to his wife. When he retired, they were grown up and on their own, and Cobb had genuine regrets for "missing" their childhood's. He wished he had been a doctor, so he could have been home for his kids, and when one of his sons went into medicine, Cobb lamented that if he, too, were a doctor they would have something in common. With all that baggage in tow, Cobb had to endure the premature deaths of both of the boys from untimely illnesses, living the last 20-odd bitter years of his life blaming himself.
Cobb may have been hard to live with, but this book empathetically explains some of the demons that drove the man into becoming a brilliant stock manipulator, a taskmaster father, an unfeeling husband, a reviled teammate, a hated opponent, and in the opinion of those who saw him, perhaps the greatest baseball player who ever lived!

The true historical record of Cobb.......2000-07-05

Alexander approaches baseball history as a historian; not a mere storyteller. This book reflects that approach. Alexander reports the feats and faults of Cobb, but doesn't try to pass judgement. Cobb's career speaks for itself (men are still chasing some of his records). However, in our age of political correctness Cobb's misbehavior speaks louder.

Alexander details a complete Cobb. For all his faults Cobb was mannered and gracious in public (most of the time), a perfect host (if he liked you) and a generous philanthropist. This is the side most other Cobb bio's whitewash.

This book proves useful as a resource about Cobb. It details the facts about his life season by season. The only way to improve the book would be to add more detail and color to some of Cobb's exploits-- but then the book would have to be about 500 pages.

I consider this to be the primere biography of Ty Cobb. However, those looking mostly for anidotes, stories and that harsh personality brought to life might want to check out Al Stumps' "Cobb". I suggest reading both to develop the full image of the Greatest innovator baseball has ever seen.

A fascinating biograph about baseball's legend.......2000-02-28

Ty cobb was the most ideal hitter in baseball before "the Babe" opened its new era.

The author described well enough for me to understand 1900-1910's players, ballparks, other circumstances around baseball.

I sincerely recommend this book to all the baseball fans.

Excellent.......1999-03-07

Perfect companion to Al Stump's bio of Cobb. Alexander is more factual; Stump gives the reader a more thorough understanding of Cobb and his peculiarly ferocious personality. (The Alexander and Stump biographies portray a man who is one part Bedford Forest, one part Patton, one part Perot and one part Michael Jordan). For instance, Alexander devotes little more than one paragraph to Cobb's nervous breakdown in August, 1906. On the other hand, Stump details the inhumane hazing Cobb received from his yankee teammates in 1906 due to southern upbringing which led to Cobb's breakdown and fed his massive paranoia. Stump does a much better job on detailing Cobb's rivalry with Babe Ruth. Alexander briefly mentions the rivalry; Stump details the intense hatred Cobb felt for Ruth. For example, as player-manager of the Tigers, Cobb would often scream at the thick-lipped Ruth from the dugout, "You Nigga', Nigga' etc., etc.." However, where Stump takes many of Cobb's stories and yarns at face value, Alexander sifts through the clouds and tells the reader what is definitely true and leaves out what might be lies. Ty Cobb is the most interesting baseball player of all time though not the most important (Jackie Robinson, Babe Ruth, Roberto Clemente and, because of his role in free agency, Catfish Hunter were more important than Cobb). To get a real good feel of Ty Cobb, you need to read two books. Mr. Alexander's book is one of the two.

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Great book
Does he tell the truth?
One big story, with a million entertaining substories.
A LOOK AT A LEGEND
a must read for a true baseball fan

My Life in Baseball: The True Record
Ty Cobb , and Al Stump
Manufacturer: Bison Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0803263597

Amazon.com

One of sports literature's great whitewashes and cover-ups, Ty Cobb's autobiography is anything but the "true record" of its titular claim. Cobb was as haunted and complex a man as has ever sharpened a pair of spikes, and, in his 70s, when he sat down to tell his story, he simply didn't want the whole of his truth revealed; he preferred to perpetuate his legend. What results, then, is a flawed fairy tale filled with colorful anecdotes and reminiscences that duck the demons that fueled Cobb's inspired play like a pitcher trying to hide from a line drive smashed in the direction of his eyeballs.

Interestingly, the story behind the book is far more raucous and compelling than the book itself. Cobb, as violent and demanding at the end of his life as he was in his playing heyday, virtually kidnapped Stump (one of the most honored sports writers of the late '50s and early '60s), subjecting almost every word and observation to Cobb's approval. Stump finally exacted his literary pound of flesh years later when he slid spikes high into Cobb's ghost with the publication of his marvelously rich--and real--accounting of Cobb's life in Cobb: A Biography. Stump not only nicked the fuzz off the Georgia Peach in that second effort, he recounted the harrowing circumstances behind the first. Together, the two books provide a fascinating prism into a man's life and legacy, the first volume bending the light to diffuse the truth, the second straightening it out to preserve it. --Jeff Silverman

Customer Reviews:

Great book.......2006-02-14

This book is great Ty Cobb teaches you all of his secrets and relationships between other players in his time he even picks his all time team that he would go against anyone today and he said he would beat anyone with his all time team I think he probably would

This book is a must for a Cobb fan and a must if you are a baseball fan

Does he tell the truth?.......2004-05-03

I think that this book was very well-written. Cobb seems like a smart man who was ahead of his time when it came to baseball. He comes across as a very bitter guy though... of course Ty was in his 70s at the time and oldtimer athletes always seem that way. Complaining about how the game has changed to be horrible and such. Its always cool to get an insider look at pro sports and athletes tho , and while i feel he didn't always tell the whole truth, I think it was a good book overall. Especially if you are a baseball history dork like me. i give it 4 out of 5.

One big story, with a million entertaining substories........2003-08-20

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was the first book about Cobb that I had ever read; before that, he was just a name and statistics to me.

The overarcing story of this book is Ty Cobb's career in baseball, with a little bit about his life before and a few flashes into his life after. Now, it would be easy to sum up a career in baseball with several numbers, a few game highlights, etc. But that is not what you'll find in this book. What you'll find is a ton of short, 5-10 paragraph interludes about almost every big name in baseball from the 1905-1928 period... and even big names elsewhere. Ty Cobb was fortunate enough to have interacted with everyone from actors to presidents to business executives, and he has humorous angles on each of them. I actually laughed out loud several times while reading this book at the way he portrayed various people.

In a lot of ways, reading this book is almost like listening to your grandfather tell stories of his adventures and his friends in his youth. Except it's not your grandfather, it's Ty Cobb, telling stories of the Golden Age of Baseball, and his friends were legends like Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Connie Mack, Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance, Nap Lajoie, and others who may also simply be names in the Hall of Fame to you. Cobb's stories bring life to long-dead names, color to old black-and-white photos. Most of us have only heard legends of those early parks, players, pennants, pitches, pundits. Cobb was there. And through reading his story, it almost feels like you were there, too.

While I've read other reviews that say this book hides the Dark Side of Ty Cobb, I don't think that is entirely true. He definitely talks about some ways he treated people, such as Shoeless Joe Jackson, that makes you realize that at his core he was a man who would stop at nothing to win.

It doesn't matter if you like Ty Cobb or hate Ty Cobb. If you want to hear some great baseball stories, read this book.

A LOOK AT A LEGEND.......2003-07-20

TY COBB TELLS OF HIS LIFE AND CAREER IN THIS INTERESTING STORY. I FOUND HIS SIDE OF THE STORY TO BE VERY REFRESHING. HE CERTAINLY IS NO ANGEL. HIS FAMILY LIFE IS MENTIONED, MAYBE 5 TIMES IN THE WHOLE BOOK. HE WAS A TRUE BRAINY PLAYER AND TOTALLY FEARLESS. HIS TROUBLED BOYHOOD WAS A REAL NIGHTMARE (HIS MOTHER ACCIDENTLY SHOT HIS FATHER TO DEATH). HE IS TOTALLY WRAPPED UP IS HIS OWN LITTLE WORLD NEVER ALLOWING ANYONE TO GET CLOSE TO HIM. I FOUND HIM TO BE FULL OF HIMSELF AND IN SELF DENIAL CONCERNING HIS ANGER AND SELF CENTEREDNESS. AS A HUMAN BEING HE IS VERY FLAWED, HATED BY TEAMATES AND JUST ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE. A TRUE LEGEND AS A PLAYER AND A VERY INTERESTING AND TROUBLED PERSON. RECOMMENDED.

a must read for a true baseball fan.......2003-02-21

Cobb is the 1st man into the hall of fame
you need to read this
No one ever loved playing baseball more than the Peach
love him or hate him
this is a must read for any TRUE baseball fan

My American Life: From Rage to Entitlement

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History in Full
Parallel Lives
Cobbs forgot Freud's Admonition about the value of self-Analysis
A Book to Be Read by All
Bravo Dr. Cobbs!

My American Life: From Rage to Entitlement
Price Cobbs
Manufacturer: Atria
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0743496221

Book Description

Price M. Cobbs, M.D., coauthor, with William H. Grier, of the explosive bestseller Black Rage -- hailed by the New York Times as "one of the most important books on [blacks]" in modern literature -- reflects on his extraordinary career and personal history in

MY AMERICAN LIFE

Medical professional, corporate consultant, freedom fighter, family man --

Dr. Cobbs is diversity defined. A black pioneer in the field of psychiatry who came of age in the Civil Rights era, Dr. Cobbs has devoted his life to the study of race and gender. With My American Life, his first memoir, Dr. Cobbs picks up where Black Rage left off by presenting a poignant account of his own journey toward Entitlement -- the essential vision of the American dream.

"In my lifetime," he writes, "I've seen African Americans struggle beyond the legacy of slavery and rage to take their place as equal citizens entitled to the same opportunities and responsibilities as everyone else." This fundamental legitimacy of laying claim to one's needs is at the heart of My American Life. More than just a memoir, it is an engaging chronicle of the black experience and a guidebook for self-empowerment.

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"Price M. Cobbs, M.D., coauthor, with William H. Grier, of Black Rage -- one of the twentieth century's most profound examinations of black life in America -- has been a witness to some of the most important events in American history. Now, thirty years later, for the first time he reconsiders his extraordinary life and career, offering a moving account of his journey -- as one of the nation's foremost authorities in the field of psychiatry -- from rage to entitlement. An African American pioneer in the field of psychiatry, Dr. Cobbs in his lifetime has grown up during the Great Depression, felt the dramatic effects of World War II, and witnessed the dismantling of Jim Crow laws and the impact of Brown vs. Board of Education. He watched the rise of Martin Luther King Jr. and the heroism of Rosa Parks in the civil rights movement. He followed the life of Malcolm X and ""searched avidly for what animated the ideas beneath his fiery rhetoric."" Every experience of his early life and education led to an auspicious partnership with a colleague, William H. Grier, who shared his convictions and the work involved in producing what the New York Times would call ""one of the most important books on [blacks]."" Written at the height of the black power movement, Black Rage has sold over one million copies and remains a relevant study of race relations. Dr. Cobbs has lived through decades of profound social, political, and cultural transformation in America. A second-generation doctor, Cobbs has at once written a classic portrait of an amazing family and the making of a healer and community and business leader. As a psychiatrist, he has pioneered methods for studying the psychology of race and gender. So, while My American Life is a heartfelt memoir of a loving father and husband, it is also a chronicle of the black experience in America. "

Customer Reviews:

History in Full.......2007-01-24

A single correction in response to the representation of the book on this site: the excerpt from page 56 alludes to the absence of German and Italian internment camps during WW II. This is the enduring public impression, but not actual fact. People of European origin were interned. See, for example the historic record of Crystal City, Texas for a better understanding of that time period.

Note: my response is to the excerpt, and not to the rest of the book, which I have not read, thus the above 1 star rating is posted only so I can gain release from this Review section...

Parallel Lives .......2006-03-30

For those of us who know and are friends/colleagues of Price Cobbs, and speaking for myself as a writer, being objective will not be easy...like Mom saying how terrific her son is. But I'll try objectivity.

This book really ought to be entitled, "READ THIS BOOK !!" - bold, underscored and 2 exclamation points. As a long-time friend of Price and his family, there were no differences - well, perhaps a few, but to the point that differences are and should be treasured. So here I am in 2006 discovering a whole other Price Cobbs I thought I knew. And for the reader who has no personal knowledge of the author, it will be an adventure, an eye opener. In a word - riveting. His writing has evolved from the "Black Rage" days - it's crystal clear, concise and slam dunk. He writes eloquently yet simply and straight forward. His life is our lives if you think about it.

So. READ THIS BOOK. Whether you are a young white liberal or old white ultra-conservative, an upwardly mobile black, Hispanic, Asian or whomever, or a stay-at-home parent - you will relate - and most likely be deeply touched by passages that ring true, that perhaps are on a par with your own experiences in this life.
There is, or should be, great kinship in the human experience, and if more of us would adopt that mantra, the world as it is today would turn into a more peaceful place.

Once, back in the 1960s when I headed public relations and media for Esalen Institute, Price asked me how I had managed to be this open, tolerant, understanding and relatively non-prejudiced person. I answered, "well, number one, I've always admired and been fascinated by other cultures since at least first grade; but number two, I do have prejudices. I hate cauliflower and bigots."

But even coming out of the civil rights years, the Esalen racial confrontation experiences, this new book brings a whole new perspective about others'(and Price's in particular) pain and rage in dealing with the hurtful actions of others toward their fellow man. Like many readers, I would think, I get tired of all the "me me me" books out there today - growth, get rich, and other do-it books, and so I tend to read less and less. However, "My American Life" was one I could not put down. It has all the makings of a literary prize winner, and many of my friends and I feel strongly that it has the makings of a darned good feature length movie.
So, strongly recommended; great reading.

Cobbs forgot Freud's Admonition about the value of self-Analysis.......2006-03-20

Did Cobbs forget Freud's Admonition about the value of self-Analysis?

While it is true that Mr. Cobbs is the same guy full of rage in the 60s, who helped change the way America looked at racism, it is also true from these pages, that all along we had misunderstood the true nature of Mr.Cobbs' rage, and of his real life quest. Apparently, it was not the same cause as that of most oppressed people. A careful review of this book will reveal that Mr. Cobbs' goal all along was the same as that of the racist whites who had been oppressing him and us: the goal of entitlement.

Most of us never saw, nor have we been pursuing, entitlement as the ultimate object of our freedom and independence - and even if we had been, few of us would have been so brazen to openly admit it. For no matter how artfully it is re-defined, entitlement has been, and remains the primary tool of those who continue to oppress the weak, the disenfranchised, the marginal, and those who have no one to speak for them -- in our increasingly mean-spirited and mismanaged "democratic society."

Undoubtedly, Mr. Cobbs would call that wallowing in one's own victimhood, and in some, but not all cases, he would be correct. However, he seems to have erred on the wrong side of this debate and thereby missed an important fact: there is more than one way to graduate from victimhood.

One way to throw off the yolk of victimhood is that which he has chosen, and which is the object of this book. It is about how some blacks, who have always felt they had a right to the same bankrupt values and entitlements and way of life that racists whites claim exclusively for themselves, have freely chosen "the ways of entitlement" as their life project. Cobbs seems completely unembarrassed by this pursuit to gain the right to unfair advantages, illicitly acquired gains, perks, prerogatives, special privileges and access, covenants, the right to exclude others, etc. -- all of which were used against him as a young man.

All along it seems that Mr. Cobbs has been nothing but a closet elitist, wanting nothing more than to become a member of the "its WHO you know rather than WHAT you know club." Mr. Cobbs' fight for freedom has been little more than a disguised fight to become a mean-spirited honorary white, and nothing more. Apparently, like Jessie Lee Peterson, he has achieved this goal and is justifiable proud of it. And wants to pass it own as his most important legacy.

Touché to Dr. Cobbs!

But Dr. Cobbs is not the only one who has given up his victimhood. There are others of us who have done so as well, perhaps in much less creative ways. But most of us did not turn in our victimhood card for the right only to use the same old Billy club once used to keep us in our "place." We did not graduate from being a victim only to assume the posture of the oppressor. Few of us ever saw adopting the values of "entitled whites (racists or not) as a virtue." If a sense of entitlement was wrong when used against Cobbs as a young man, it is surely just as wrong when Cobbs and other members of his so called "Talented Tenth," seek to use it against others.

However, from the book one can see that Cobbs acquired this pedigree honestly, and not from his father, who was a hard working Doctor not in search of such entitlements. His father was an exemplary example of a servant to the people he administered medicine to. No, Cobbs admits that he acquired this unholy penchant from his mother. Who through her own pain and rage "over-learned" the petty ways of the white racists who oppressed her. She learned how to transform self-hatred into a sense of entitlement, and through social osmosis past it unerringly on to her son who was anointed "the Bishop," at birth.

Having read Black Rage when it first appeared in print, I was anxious to see what one of the authors had to say a generation later. And although I am by now used to "so called" successful blacks reciting their bios as if it is some kind of Holy Grail for the rest of us, I was greatly disappointed it what Cobbs had to say.

He after all is a Psychiatrist. But apparently is one similar to the bus driver who never took a bus trip. Rather incongruously, he alluded to the "Stockholm syndrome" without being aware that it aptly applies to his own life of seven decades of sublimated rage and pain. Cobbs apparently lacks the vision and awareness to see that his dreams have finally matured from the incubator of his rage. But instead of taking on a fully adult form, they have been taken over and commandeered by those who caused him so much pain as a young man, and while he would readily see this kind of transformation in others, he has failed to see that his own mind has been slowly but inexorably colonized. This book is nothing if not a roadmap into Cobbs own subconscious--his desperate attempt to escape the pain, fear and rage acquired from seven decades of racism. What we see behind the screen is less rage, but still much pain, and many unfulfilled yearnings.

Like Uncle C. Thomas and Aunt C. Rice, unconsciously and ever-so-slowly, Dr. Cobbs has redefined the parameters of his humanity and his worldview so that they are now in perfect alignment with the racist values that oppressed him as a young man. He refuses to see this transformation for what it is - a slow generational process of cooptation. Never once did he try to impose his terms and values on the world, because slowly, they were wrung out of him through his pain and rage and - through a social lobotomy, in situ - were replaced with the oppressor's own values. With this mental substitution, the reality across the Bay Bridge, which is everyday equal to the devastation in New Orleans, or anything we, or Cobbs saw in the deep segregated South, can no longer be seen. Cobbs is wilfully and morally blind to it. In Cobbs' mind Oakland is not there.

From the safety of the high (and dry) ground on Nobb Hill in San Francisco, which in social distance, is as far away from Oakland as it is from New Orleans, Dr. Cobbs has learned what side of his bread is buttered. He knows how to give great undue weight to the mostly cosmetic changes made since the Civil Rights Movement and since he wrote Black Rage. Yes, yes, we all know about Rosa Parks and MLK, but that an buck fifty will not get you a cup of coffee at Fishersman's Wharf. He obviously has not been across the Oakland Bay Bridge lately to talk with its ex-Mayor Jerry Brown.

Cobbs' success is sad and pyrrhic: Like Bush in Iraq, he has had his head in the sand and has declared a private and mostly unconscious victory for himself and his mom, while Rome burns both inside and all around him. He too will be "shocked and awed" when the real war in American society, which is all but inevitable, begins. He has used a now well-worn tactic for black success: When you can't defeat the bankrupt values that oppress you, adopt them as your own and call it a lifetime victory. Patty Hearst would reconize that for what it is: The Stockholm syndrome.

Cobbs' goal all along was not to defeat racist oppression, but to get in bed with it. It is like Jews wanting nothing more than to try on an SS uniform. Cobbs has gone from rage in the 60s to being comfortable today in the uniform of the oppressor, and calling his version of entitlement "giving up victimhood." "If only all those victims would voluntarily give up their victimhood, how nice could America really become?" Can an authentic Black man actually be saying such as this?

Now "the Bishop" has the rarified vantage point he always sought: consorting in the boardrooms high above the "wretched of the Earth," with an adopted set of bankrupt values that he can pretend are his own. From that perch, he can lord over "the new wretched of the Earth" in the same way that the racists whites lorded over him in the 60s. I guess,in a grotesque sort of way that is a kind of success. His mother would be proud. Two stars.

A Book to Be Read by All .......2006-02-13

As a black and white couple married for over 45 years, we are fortunate to experience the very excellently articulated story, "My American Life," by Dr. Cobbs. He has provided us with a better understanding of our rage and the importance of entitlement in our lives. It is truly a book to be read by all Americans.

Byron and Ann Barker

Bravo Dr. Cobbs!.......2006-02-10

As a white American, I found this book to be invaluable in educating me about the African-American experience in this country during the 20th century.

I was completely unaware of the dynamics that shaped current racial issues in our country, and I found that the way Price Cobbs described his early childhood experiences and beliefs, as well as those of his parents, to be incredibly insightful.

His training as a psychiatrist has certainly enabled him to describe the subtleties and nuances that I have often found lacking in other autobiographies. I also found that his self-disclosure was extremely helpful in bringing this to life.

I wish that more Americans of every racial and ethnic background would read this as it provides such meaningful insight into our increasingly multi-ethnic society. Well done, Dr. Cobbs!

The Ty Cobb Scrapbook: An Illustrated Chronology of Significant Dates in the 24-Year Career of the Fabled Georgia Peach

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Ty Cobb's Scrapbook

The Ty Cobb Scrapbook: An Illustrated Chronology of Significant Dates in the 24-Year Career of the Fabled Georgia Peach
Marc Okkonen
Manufacturer: Sterling
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0806928476

Book Description

Relive the thrill of 24 years in the career of the fabled "Georgia Peach"--one of the greatest, most colorful, and simply larger-than-life baseball players who ever lived. Arranged in a visually exciting scrapbook format, packed with pictures and memorabilia that illustrate every significant date and more than 800 games, it takes you from April 26, 1904, when the 17-year-old Tyrus Raymond Cobb stepped up to the plate for the first time professionally, till his final turn on the field in 1928. The focus is on his playing, rather than on his oft-discussed personality and private life, with commentary culled from contemporary accounts that reveal how Cobb's swift throwing arm and fine batting skills contributed to every game. A generous sampling of photographs, cartoons, and ads from the period--many not seen since their original publication--provides a rare and enlightening vision of this ever-intriguing hero of baseball.

Customer Reviews:

Ty Cobb's Scrapbook.......2002-12-26

It was a refreshing look from a contemporary view of this fasinating era of baseball. Crammed full of interesting pictures. The Author certainly portrays Cobb as a baseball player extroadinaire. This book adornes my coffee table and is great for sneaking in a quick look from the "Deadball area."

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The Father, the son and then Harold Cruse!!!
Essays for the Cause

The Essential Harold Cruse: A Reader

Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0312293968

Book Description

In 1967, as the movement for civil rights was turning into a bitter, often violent battle for black power, Harold Cruse's The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual burst onto the scene. It was a lacerating attack on integration, and set the agenda for black cultural, social, and political autonomy. A classic of African American social thought, the book and its author went on to influence generations of activists, artists, and scholars. Cruse's intelligence, independence, and breadth of vision virtually defined what it meant to be a black intellectual in modern America. In this first anthology of Cruse's writing, William Jelani Cobb provides a powerful introduction to Cruse's wide body of work, including published material such as excerpts from Crisis, as well as unpublished essays, speeches, and correspondence. The Essential Harold Cruse is certain to become standard reading for anyone interested in race in American society.

Customer Reviews:

The Father, the son and then Harold Cruse!!!.......2006-06-30

Black people are going to end up as a question on Jeopardy; "What's the name of the race with the most literature on liberation but was never actually liberated?" Answer, "Who is the Black Race Alex." "That is correct." Culture + Politics + Economics = Power...real power. If only we'd read what our Ancestors have intelligently layed out for us. The reviewer underneath me is dead on! I just got his last book, 'Plural But Equal' and will let everyone know how that one is as well.

Essays for the Cause.......2002-06-05

Harold Cruse was one of the most intellectual and insightful men of his time. The Essential Harold Cruse:A Reader is a collection of essays that provides into how he was thinking and what he thought as a black man during times, past and present, of racial strife and struggle.

Mr.Cruse critiques some of the most well known people of his time. Chapter four of the book sticks out in mind, for example. James Baldwin, one of the most well known and respected author's ever, wrote a play called Blues for Mr. Charlie. Mr. Baldwin was emphatic when discussing Mr. Charlie that it was not a Negro play, but just a a play that had some resonant social themes. Cruse criticizes Baldwin for not being true to himself or to the cause. Mr. Cruse was very outspoken and always wrote or said what he thought.

The Essential Harold Cruse:A Reader edited by William Jelani Webb was a very difficult book to read at times because some of the essays were very indepth and I felt as though the author was talking over my head and overanalyzing. On the other hand the collection of essays was insightful and informative and I feel that in reading this book that I learned a lot.

Customer Reviews:

Not Understanding John le Carre.......2001-03-25

This book is a disgrace. Despite its academic paraphernalia (extensive bibliography, endnotes, etc.) the one chapter I read first contained 27 errors ranging from misspellings of characters' names to misquotation from texts. The style is embarrassing, littered with cliches, ridiculous and inflated diction and garbled grammar, which renders the book almost unreadable and totally meaningless. This book has nothing whatever of interest to say about John le Carre, beyond offering a bibliography of sensible proper books about the author. I wrote a letter of complaint to the author and to the publisher. The publisher replied with profuse apologies and refunded my money. The author has not yet replied to me. I strongly recommend you not to buy this book, and if you have already done so, write and claim a refund.

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