{"product_id":"the-audacity-of-hoop-9781439913093","title":"The Audacity of Hoop","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile basketball didn't take up residence in the White House in January 2009, the game nonetheless played an outsized role in forming the man who did. In The Audacity of Hoop, celebrated sportswriter Alexander Wolff examines Barack Obama, the person and president, by the light of basketball. This game helped Obama explore his identity, keep a cool head, impress his future wife, and define himself as a candidate.Wolff chronicles Obama's love of the game from age 10, on the campaign trailwhere it eventually took on talismanic meaningand throughout his two terms in office. More than 125 photographs illustrate Obama dribbling, shooting free throws, playing pickup games, cooling off with George Clooney, challenging his special assistant Reggie Love for a rebound, and taking basketball to political meetings. There is also an assessment of Obama's influence on the NBA, including a dawning political consciousness in the league's locker rooms.Sidebars reveal the evolution of the president's pla\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"The cool, the flow, the edge, the drive, the individual and the team, the black and white - all of that is Barack Obama, playing basketball, the American game. To those who consider the president a mystery,\u003ci\u003e The Audacity of Hoop\u003c\/i\u003e offers a key to understanding him, through Alex Wolff's fluid prose and Pete Souza's evocative photographs.\"--David Maraniss, author of \u003ci\u003eBarack Obama: The Story\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"\u003c\/i\u003eThe Audacity of Hoop\u003ci\u003e—like the game of basketball it evokes and the political icon who memorably plays it—is a beautiful and timely book that moves in the graceful rhythms of the hardwood that President Obama has embraced. Basketball has not only taught Obama to be a fierce but disciplined competitor; it has also offered him a swagger and a vocabulary of physical cool and mental toughness that have carried him from street games to the biggest court in the world: the American presidency. Wolff’s brilliant and lovely pickup game of a book is a fitting metaphor to explore the racial and cultural dimensions of a man who used basketball to conquer the world and then used that power to play, as often as he could, wherever he was, the game that he—and the nation he leads—loves.\"\u003c\/i\u003e—\u003cb\u003eMichael Eric Dyson\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in America\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"\u003c\/i\u003eThe Audacity of Hoop\u003ci\u003e reveals not only how Barack Obama’s first love shaped his character and fired his ambitions but also how, even now, the president’s pickup game is ‘a kind of polygraph of the heart.’ With poignant analysis and sparkling prose, Alexander Wolff shows us how basketball helped our forty-fourth president become as skilled at consensus building as he is at trash-talking. I love this book.\"\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eDon Van Natta Jr.\u003c\/b\u003e, ESPN Investigative Reporter, Pulitzer Prize winner, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e best-selling author of \u003ci\u003eFirst Off the Tee: Presidential Hackers, Duffers, and Cheaters from Taft to Bush\u003c\/i\u003e, co-author of \u003ci\u003eHer Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton\u003c\/i\u003e, and author of \u003ci\u003eWonder Girl: The Magnificent Sporting Life of Babe Didrikson Zaharias\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"Alexander Wolff, with grace and marvelous insight, has written a beautiful basketball book that fans of the game will love. Whether you’re a Republican or Democrat, \u003c\/i\u003eThe Audacity of Hoop\u003ci\u003e will enthrall you. Wolff vividly explores basketball’s influence on the identity of President Obama and in the process reveals something magical about the sport itself.\"\u003c\/i\u003e—\u003cb\u003eKevin Merida\u003c\/b\u003e, Managing Editor of the \u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e and co-author of \u003ci\u003eObama: The Historic Campaign in Photographs\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"A highly informed and fascinating look at the intersection of sports and politics that led me to unexpected realizations about Obama, the presidency, and the world of basketball. Smart and fun.\"\u003c\/i\u003e—\u003cb\u003eGerald Early\u003c\/b\u003e, Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters, Washington University in St. Louis\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"In the book—which features large-scale photographs of the President at play, many taken by the official White House photographer, Pete Souza—Wolff breaks down the particulars of the President’s game....  \u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003ePresidents are endlessly scrutinized, and must constantly calibrate their self-presentations to appeal to the electorate. Basketball, for all of its cultural complexity, has arguably been, as Wolff writes, one way for Obama 'to let the public see exactly who he was.'\"\u003c\/i\u003e--The New Yorker\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e1 Basketball Jones\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e2 Hoop Dreams from His Father\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e  Gaming the President Out\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e  The First Brother-in-Law\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e3 Running Game\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e  “The Little Brother I Never Had”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e  Obama, One-on-One\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e  Players’ Choice\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e4 Power, Forward\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e  Baracketology\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e  Hardwood Cabinet\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e  The Secretary of Schoolin’ People \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e  Center Circles \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e  Lip Service \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e  Ding-Dong Diplomacy \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e  The World’s Most Elegant Locker Room \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e  The Loyal Opposition \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e  The Inevitability of Golf\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e5 The Game in the Age of Obama\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e  Shooting the First Shooter\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTimeline\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAcknowledgments\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNotes\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelected Bibliography\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIndex\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Temple University Press,U.S.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49408311984471,"sku":"9781439913093","price":30.4,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781439913093.jpg?v=1730502394","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-audacity-of-hoop-9781439913093","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}