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A review by gracefullypunk
Soccer Against the Enemy: How the World's Most Popular Sport Starts and Fuels Revolutions and Keeps Dictators in Power by Simon Kuper
3.0
I wish I could give this book a higher rating, as I like the premise and I enjoy Kuper's style and often witty insight. But there are two major reasons I can't.
First, the US edition could have stood for some better editing. It seems someone went through a document and did a find and replace for the word "football." The problem is, "football" refers to both the sport and the actual ball, and the editor didn't go through the tedium of re-reading to add the word ball where necessary. This results in sentences like "I nudged the soccer with the tip of my toe." In worse cases, "American football" is changed to "American soccer", making it into an entirely different sport.
Second, the addition of the Croatia section made me question the credibility of the other chapters, as it's obvious Kuper didn't have a good grasp of what was going on during the war. The breakup of Yugoslavia is complicated, yes, but he's unable to identify correctly which sides are fighting against which. As I don't know the history of the other regimes he outlines, I'm not sure of the errors there, but that also makes me less confident that what he wrote is correct.
First, the US edition could have stood for some better editing. It seems someone went through a document and did a find and replace for the word "football." The problem is, "football" refers to both the sport and the actual ball, and the editor didn't go through the tedium of re-reading to add the word ball where necessary. This results in sentences like "I nudged the soccer with the tip of my toe." In worse cases, "American football" is changed to "American soccer", making it into an entirely different sport.
Second, the addition of the Croatia section made me question the credibility of the other chapters, as it's obvious Kuper didn't have a good grasp of what was going on during the war. The breakup of Yugoslavia is complicated, yes, but he's unable to identify correctly which sides are fighting against which. As I don't know the history of the other regimes he outlines, I'm not sure of the errors there, but that also makes me less confident that what he wrote is correct.