Imatge de l'autor

Sobre l'autor

Simon Kuper is one of the world's leading writers on soccer. The winner of the William Hill prize for sports book of the year in Britain, Kuper writes a weekly-column for the Financial Times. He lives in Paris.

Inclou el nom: Simon Kuper

Crèdit de la imatge: Simon Kuper

Obres de Simon Kuper

Football Against the Enemy (1994) 411 exemplars
Magnum Soccer (2002) 49 exemplars
Retourtjes Nederland (2006) 5 exemplars
Hard Gras / 31 4 exemplars
Hard Gras / 72 (2010) 3 exemplars

Obres associades

Jewish Jocks: An Unorthodox Hall of Fame (2012) — Col·laborador — 54 exemplars

Etiquetat

Coneixement comú

Membres

Ressenyes

Meer dan 20 jaar geleden las ik het 22e deel van Hard Gras. Volledig volgeschreven door Simon Kuper, ik was erg onder de indruk. Maar meteen ook de reden dat dit boek dat kort daarna uitkwam niet bij mij in de kast belandde. Jaren later in de opruimingsbak ging ik toch overstag. De overlap nam ik voor lief. Maar zelfs daarna stond het boek jaren ongelezen op de plank.

Tot vorig jaar op twitter (toen nog) een aankondiging stond dat er een online openbare boekenavond was over dit boek, met de schrijver. Meteen haalde ik het boek uit de kast. Uiteindelijk kon ik de bewuste avond niet, dus heb ik die sessie gemist, maar het boek las ik toch wel graag.

Voordeel van twee decennia tussen de Nederlandse versie en de uitgebreidere Engelse versie is dat ik van het origineel veel niet heb onthouden. De grote lijnen wel, de details niet. Die komen op deze manier weer terug. Mooi is de werkwijze van Kuper, veel ooggetuigen aan het woord laten. Het wordt eigenlijk gewoon een geschiedenisboek over de Tweede Wereldoorlog, waarbij voetbal de kapstok is, de aanleiding om juist deze mensen aan het woord te laten en niet de tig andere ooggetuigen. Een manier van beperken en daardoor interessanter te maken.

De titel is een beetje misleidend, het gaat zeker niet alleen over Ajax, al kan ik me voorstellen dat die naam buiten Nederland zo groot is, dat je die naam wil gebruiken op de voorkant, in je marketing. Het boek is veel beter dan de beperkte titel. Heel Europa ligt onder de loep, vergelijkingen kunnen worden gemaakt. De mythe dat heel Nederland in het verzet zat wordt netjes doorgeprikt, voor zelfreflectie hebben we in dit land blijkbaar een buitenstaander nodig die ons wijst op onze eigen valse geschiedschrijving.

Veel research (vijf bladzijden met titels achterin), grondig onderzoek, dit boek zou voor vele hedendaagse zogenaamde researchers een goed voorbeeld kunnen zijn. Compliment voor Kuper, die mij onlangs nog hielp met mijn eigen boek.

Citaat: “The Holocaust in the Netherlands, wrote Arendt, was a catastrophe unparalleled in any Western country; it can be compared only with the extinction, under vastly different and, from the beginning, completely desperate conditions, of Polish Jewry’. She blamed, in large part, the strong Dutch Nazi movement, second in Europe only to Germany’s. It was true that a relatively large number of Dutch Jews had found hiding places, but it was also true that a relatively large number of them were betrayed.” (p.137)
… (més)
 
Marcat
privaterevolution | Hi ha 5 ressenyes més | Mar 1, 2024 |
A non-fiction book looking at the Amsterdam football club, Ajax, and how it and the people around the club were affected by the second World War. In fact that's a very reductive description - many other European football clubs and cultures are touched on, and the Kuper also ranges over decades around the war. But at its heart the book is focussed on Ajax, and through that it examines the Dutch - their character, politics and history.

The book is packed with detail and is excoriating in an understated way. It effectively manages to tell of the horrors of World War II in Europe, and warns of the tenacious attitudes that formented it still being with us today. Some of the detail can be overwhelming - the statistics are horrifying, but can be slippery to recall. I'm not sure if that's due to the slightly scattershot structure of the book, or just that many of the events are so unimagineable.

Certainly some of the sense of being overwhelmed comes from trying to wrap your head around the slightly contradictory ideas that are at the heart of the book. Kuper contends that Holland, and particularly Ajax Football Club was both better and worse during the war than pop culture history would have them. Holland gave up its Jews much more easily than most other European countries, though not, it is asserted, because Holland had a large Nazi Party (they did) but because the Dutch just wanted a peaceful, orderly life. And the continuance of sport, and football in particular, were part of that (as it was in many other countries). That said, many Jews associated with Ajax actually were protected and survived through their association with the club, and were later instrumental in the club's success. But peculiarly that's not celebrated by the club, or even really acknowledged, and that despite Ajax being perceived as a Jewish club. The Dutch as a whole, it asserts, understand that they were not particularly virtuous in WWII, but - or perhaps because of that - would also like to avoid any serious engagement with the casual anti-semitism that the author identifies in Holland since the war years.

There is lots of other interesting stuff, about English football, and football under the Nazis, and perhaps the book's greatest value is in correcting the accepted version of history (the England team's Nazi salute, for example). While occasionally a touch ranty, it is unflinching and keen.

… (més)
1 vota
Marcat
thisisstephenbetts | Hi ha 5 ressenyes més | Nov 25, 2023 |
Simon Kuper immersed himself in the Barcelona FC culture for decades and the long view shows here. He details the club’s operations from the Johan Cruyff days as a player (1973-78) and coach (1988-96), to the recent downturn. He displays a deep understanding of the tactics, personalities and politics of the club.

Cruyff was the catalyst for Kuper’s interest in the club. “Cruyff created the great Barca. In the words of his chief disciple, Pep Guardiola, he built the cathedral” which was “later updated by Guardiola and perfected by Lionel Messi, before it fell into decay.”

The club developed from “a bastion of local pride” to one of the world’s best clubs, propelled by Cruyff and his philosophy. Guardiola for one, considers Cruyff “the most important person in the history of football.” Although the club has fallen on hard times (but at this writing are in first place in La Liga, albeit early into the season), Kuper isn’t writing them off. He finishes with a warm thought: “What Barca created, in the world’s most beloved sport, is one of the most cheering of human achievements.”

This is probably the best book I’ve read for understanding the dynamics of a top-level football team.
… (més)
 
Marcat
Hagelstein | Hi ha 1 ressenya més | Sep 16, 2023 |
George Blake, who died last year aged 98, is less well known than his fellow spies educated at Cambridge. He was not recruited by his peer group, he operated alone, he was not part of the Establishment and perhaps, as a result, he was treated more harshly than his fellow traitors.

An MI6 officer, apparently recruited by the Russians after being captured in 1950 during the Korean War, he was himself betrayed by a defector, Michael Goleniewski, in 1961. Sentenced to 42 years in prison, he escaped from Wormwood Scrubs in 1966 with the help of two peaceniks and an Irish petty criminal and spent over 50 years in Russian exile.

Simon Kuper, a Financial Times journalist, was given a three-hour interview in 2012 on the understanding that it would only appear in the Netherlands and that any book based on it would only appear after Blake’s death.

This is the result, supplemented by reading in the secondary literature, as well as newly discovered material on Blake’s wartime career in the Dutch Resistance, good use of Stasi files, interviews with a Dutch radio journalist and a documentary made in 2015.

Born in Rotterdam in 1922 and brought up there and by a Communist uncle in Cairo, Blake was caught between various identities: his father, a Levantine Jew from Constantinople, had acquired British citizenship. Kuper clearly established a good relationship with Blake and their shared background – part Dutch, part Jewish, part British – helps him understand Blake’s own ambivalent attitude to Britain and how Russia offered the homeland that his mixed heritage had denied him.

George Blake, who died last year aged 98, is less well known than his fellow spies educated at Cambridge. He was not recruited by his peer group, he operated alone, he was not part of the Establishment and perhaps, as a result, he was treated more harshly than his fellow traitors.

An MI6 officer, apparently recruited by the Russians after being captured in 1950 during the Korean War, he was himself betrayed by a defector, Michael Goleniewski, in 1961. Sentenced to 42 years in prison, he escaped from Wormwood Scrubs in 1966 with the help of two peaceniks and an Irish petty criminal and spent over 50 years in Russian exile.

Simon Kuper, a Financial Times journalist, was given a three-hour interview in 2012 on the understanding that it would only appear in the Netherlands and that any book based on it would only appear after Blake’s death.

This is the result, supplemented by reading in the secondary literature, as well as newly discovered material on Blake’s wartime career in the Dutch Resistance, good use of Stasi files, interviews with a Dutch radio journalist and a documentary made in 2015.

Born in Rotterdam in 1922 and brought up there and by a Communist uncle in Cairo, Blake was caught between various identities: his father, a Levantine Jew from Constantinople, had acquired British citizenship. Kuper clearly established a good relationship with Blake and their shared background – part Dutch, part Jewish, part British – helps him understand Blake’s own ambivalent attitude to Britain and how Russia offered the homeland that his mixed heritage had denied him.

Read the full review at HistoryToday.com.

Andrew Lownie is the author of Stalin’s Englishman: The Lives of Guy Burgess (Hodder & Stoughton, 2016).
… (més)
 
Marcat
HistoryToday | Aug 31, 2023 |

Llistes

Premis

Potser també t'agrada

Autors associats

Estadístiques

Obres
25
També de
2
Membres
1,704
Popularitat
#15,059
Valoració
½ 3.8
Ressenyes
47
ISBN
100
Llengües
11

Gràfics i taules