Spinning the Globe: The Rise, Fall, and Return to Greatness of the Harlem Globetrotters [Hardcover]

Ben Green (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 3, 2005

Before Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Julius Erving, or Michael Jordan––before Magic Johnson and Showtime––the Harlem Globetrotters revolutionized basketball and spread the game around the world. In Spinning the Globe, author Ben Green tells the story of this extraordinary franchise and iconic American institution. We follow the Globetrotters' rise from backwoods obscurity during the harsh years of the Great Depression to become the best basketball team in the country and, by the early 1950s, the most popular sports franchise in the world. Green brings to life their struggles with racism and segregation, and their influence upon a nation's views about race and sport. We witness the Globetrotters' fall from grace to the brink of bankruptcy in the early 1990s, and their ultimate rebirth under Mannie Jackson today, as they once again amaze kids and families around the world. Now in paperback, this is the true and complete story of their amazing eighty years as a team, told with lyrical prose and masterful storytelling by Ben Green.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For certain generations, the song "Sweet Georgia Brown" immediately brings to mind the Harlem Globetrotters and their on-court comedy. Long before they became the clown princes of basketball, however, the Trotters were America's most popular sports team. Green (Before His Time) traces the team's history back to its roots in Depression-era Chicago and its early barnstorming years. Fans who remember the team through their television appearances in the early 1970s are in for an education, as Green undercuts the reputation of Meadowlark Lemon, whom other Trotters openly criticize as a poor player, while celebrating legends from the '40s and '50s such as Marques Haynes and Goose Tatum. During those years, the team was already honing its gags, but the players were also regularly competing against the nation's best college players—and even beating NBA squads before the league became racially integrated. Green's straightforward but respectful approach carries over into a balanced handling of the "minstrel show" reputation that dogged the Globetrotters almost from the beginning, as well as a brief account of the team's modern revival after being bought by a former player. The overall effect of this vividly rendered history is to make readers wish they could see the Globetrotters it describes in action. 16-page b&w photo insert.
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Review

“...an ambitious, engaging book on the history of the Globetrotters.” (Black Issues Book Review )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Amistad (May 3, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060555491
• ISBN-13: 978-0060555498
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #990,207 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #91 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Basketball > Professional

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A three Pointer at the buzzer, October 2, 2005

By 

Gary Tallman "avid reader" (Tarzana, Ca USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spinning the Globe: The Rise, Fall, and Return to Greatness of the Harlem Globetrotters (Hardcover)

It is an honor to be the first person to review this book. One of my greatest childhood memories is of my father taking my brother and I to see the Globetrotters in the late 60's. I fell in love with the show then and have gone to see them about ten times since then. I love introducing people to the trotters who never saw them in person before.Now this great new book comes along about the Trotters. It was too good to be true. This is a very scholarly tome. It is richly detailed. I came away from it marveling at the stamina and endurance of this team. Being in existence for 80 years is truly remarkable. This book traces the teams' history from their humble beginnings in the 1920's to their resurgence in 2005. I was startled by the poor conditions they played under early on. Abe Saperstein, the founder and owner of the team is an enigma. I found myself admiring him greatly at times and hating him for his veiled prejudice and sense of superiority.Mr Green devotes a lot of space to Goose Tatum and Marques Haynes. It is worth it to get to know these great players that came before my time. The story about Goose and his "son" was very funny. I was really looking forward to reading the section on Meadowlark Lemon. He was my globetrotter hero growing up and it was a bit sad to read about his career as a Trotter. The book really picks up steam when Mannie Jackson is introduced as the current owner of the team and all of his changes are instituted and the Globetrotters are returned to glory. The book has great closure.If I had one quibble with this book I would have liked to know more about the inner workings of the games and how the Trotters work with the Washington Generals or whichever team they are playing. I would have loved to have read what it is like playing against the Trotters night after night. It would have been interesting to read about the referees throughout the years. They have borne the brunt of many a globetrotter riff. It would have been nice to have seen them paid their due.I applaud Mr Green for an exhaustively written book about one of the greatest sports teams of all times.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great infomation, March 26, 2011

By 

Katherine M. Johnson (Herndon, VA United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Spinning the Globe: The Rise, Fall, and Return to Greatness of the Harlem Globetrotters (Hardcover)

I am doing research on my great great cousin, Tommy Brookins and saw this book...He was one of the original Savoy 5....

5.0 out of 5 stars First truly good history about the Harlem Globetrotters, December 4, 2010

By 

Bruce Baskin (Chehalis, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spinning the Globe: The Rise, Fall, and Return to Greatness of the Harlem Globetrotters (Paperback)

Full disclosure: I grew up loving the Harlem Globetrotters and am still a fan (I have a collection of every season program since 1948), although I'm more a fan of their legacy than their current watered-down incarnation.

Anyway, there have been a number of books over the years about the Trotters (some better than others), but this is the first one that I'd call scholarly and even-handed in its treatment of them. As you read, you'll find Abe Saperstein to be a visionary with a plantation mentality. I think he truly loved his players, but in a paternalistic sense, and he never missed the chance to make a dollar or promote himself as well as his team. I really have mixed feelings about him, and so do a lot of his former players.

The book give a great background of Saperstein's life before he formed the Trotters so you get a perspective for WHY and HOW the team was formed. You then get a seat in the car as the fledgling team drives to small midwest towns to play straight basketball (and play it well) before discovering comedy almost by accident. It took the better part of 15 years before the Trotters really received widespread notice, but winning a World Championship in the early 40's boosted their fame and beating the NBA champion Lakers in the late 40's cemented it. At the time, the team had a near-perfect mix of skill and humor, and they just took off.

I'll leave the rest for you to find out for yourself, but Green does a terrific job of detailing the evolution of the contradiction that is the Harlem Globetrotters: Alternately a group of skilled basketball entertainers who have made literally millions of people around the world smile while providing black players the chance to earn a living, while also laboring in servitude to owners who have encouraged things on-court that feed almost every racial stereotype one can conjure.

This is an excellent, well-written book that is the best I've read on the history of the Harlem Globetrotters. I just wish the current owners would read it so they might better understand what they have.