Customer Reviews

Figure Skating: A HISTORY

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4 star:		(1)
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This is a brilliant book -- and sorely needed one for afficionados of the sport. At last -- a serious, scholarly, up-to-date history of figure skating! The book traces the history of sport (the development of skates, positions, moves, etc.) from its earliest days in the Middle Ages when skating was a practical way of getting around in Nordic countries, through the first skating clubs in Elizabethan England and its rise in popularity in the 19th century, and, especially, 19th century America. The book is well documented, with footnotes and photos of all the important figures (there's even a picture of St. Lydwina -- the Roman Catholic patroness of skaters!) It gives a descriptive accounts of figure skating moves (jumps, spins, spirals, school figures, etc.) and how they developed along with their inventors; it also focuses on innovators of the sport who may not have won any championships and the development of the scoring system. It is all-embracing in its approach describing the sport as found in Europe, the Americas and the sport's recent surge in Asia. It also includes an appendix with tables of all winners (up to the year 2005) for World, European, Olympic and various oher championships. There are photographs of every world and Olympic champion -- a nice added extra, as it helps reveal how much the sport has changed through the past century. This book is for those who are serious about the sport, follow it closely and are interested in detailed accounts of figure skating as a competitive sport with a noble history, and as entertainment -- qualities unique to skating. It's a terrific book -- and it's about time!

This book will go over the heads of most skating fans and the author admits it. He even says that most books about figure skating fall into the category of "juvenile literature" because that's who's interested in them.

That said, it's a wonderful history of the sport - back to caveman days! - and goes into the story of things many people don't know about now, like school figures, or bat an eye at, like non-white skaters. The photos at the back are fascinating to look at because of the changes in clothing styles and the sport's transition from winter-only to year-round in the 1960s. There is also a chapter on skating teams, including foursomes, a phenomenon almost unique to Canadian skaters, with a bizarre picture of two men and two women doing a simultaneous death spiral. It looked, um, kinda kinky. The section on adult skating - competitive or not - was fun to read as well. Its participants range from late teens to seniors.

Little is said about scandals other than the infamous Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan thing, but the AIDS epidemic's impact on male skaters, a huge percentage of whom are gay, is hinted at simply because of the large number of men who died too young in the 1980s and 1990s. There is also a section on the plane crash that killed the entire 1961 U.S. skating team, their coaches, and some of their relatives, and led to the cancellation of that year's world championships and destroyed America's lead in this sport for many years afterwards.

I found it was not a book that I could just sit down and read, other than the chapters in the front, but rather looked things up in the index and went from there.

Enjoy!

This was ... pretty good ... but kinda like the little girl with the little curl. Where it's good it's really interesting. Where it's bad it just ... dull. Some sections the author goes into a lot of detail about skaters and events. Other sections read rather like a biblical geneology. "Jane Jones won in 1936 and Sue Smith won in 1937 and Mary Martin won in 1938 and 1939." Tell us MORE about Jane and Sue and Mary. What were their performances like? Who was the competition?

Skaters who were neither world nor olympic champions, even if their stories are interesting and they've made a major impact (i.e., Paul Wylie) barely rate a mention.

Many of the photos are posed shots rather than action photos, making it hard to picture what the events might have been like.

I did find it very interesting to read about synchronized skating and adult skating. (Having a friend who is involved in both, but knowing little about it, it was very enlightening.)

This book has all the information you could ever want about the history of figure skating.
Very nice book.