"This book is a narrative and interpretive triumph. Bryant is excellent at explaining midcentury communism''s appeal to some Black Americans and at viewing his subjects'' actions through the lens of ideas developed by W.E.B. Du Bois. His tightly focused reporting on a sad mid-20th-century episode says plenty about the injustices of the 21st. A first-rate look at the very public ideological quarrel between Black superstars." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Powerful history.
Deeply researched and expertly crafted, this is an important corrective to the popular understanding of race and politics in mid-century America." - Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Takes a long, unflinching look at the complex racial dynamics that created unlikely foes of two of the twentieth century''s greatest figures. In this important corrective to America''s self-soothing origin story, Bryant lays out a tale that still resounds." - Booklist (starred review) "I loved this book. Paul Robeson. Jackie Robinson. Two luminous figures, heroic and tragic, colliding as they struggle for freedom in twentieth-century America. I looked forward to this book more than any other in a long time, and Howard Bryant exceeded my great expectations.
Kings and Pawns is brilliantly conceived and powerfully written." - David Maraniss, author of Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe "With characteristic elegance and insight, Howard Bryant discovers in the entangled lives of Paul Robeson and Jackie Robinson a heartrending tragedy of lost opportunities, not only debunking the legend that white liberalism and black grit desegregated baseball, but lays bare the common forces keen on destroying both men for daring to stand against racism. This book could not be timelier. A truly magnificent and moving read." - Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original "Excellent and unexpectedly fascinating, because I thought I knew something about both its key figures, and even more about the sordid history of political witch-hunting in this country. But Howard Bryant adds a whole new layer of far less familiar history about the interweaving of racism and anticommunism during a particularly grim period of American life.
And he tells the story both subtly and vividly." - Adam Hochschild, author of American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy''s Forgotten Crisis "Kings and Pawns is a masterful, empathetic centering of Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson by Howard Bryant -- one, a symbol of Black anticommunism, the other an avatar of unbending dissent in the crucible of Cold War America. This gripping, essential history serves as both revelation and warning." - Dr. Amy Bass, Professor of Sport Studies, Manhattanville University "This is a book we''ve needed for 75 years. The engineered collision between Robinson and Robeson explains what we''ve become, as does the efforts to disappear the great Robeson and everything he stood for. The real confrontation was not between Robinson and Robeson, but them standing on one side and their Jim Crow tormentors on the other." - Dave Zirin, author of The People''s Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn "Illuminating and rigorously researched.
" - New York Times Book Review on The Last Hero "Beautifully written and culturally important . tells the Aaron story with gusto and a ferocious sweep. Bryant may just have given us a classic." - The Washington Post on The Last Hero "Seldom does a sports biography -- especially a page-turner -- so comprehensively explain the forces that made an icon the way they are." - Sports Illustrated on Rickey "Thanks to Howard Bryant''s new biography, we can peel back a few of those inscrutable layers and find the man beneath the swagger. Bryant does some of his best work along the fault line of race and culture, an area he covers well in most of his writing. Henderson ultimately had the last laugh: Today he''s seen as an all-time great. Bryant''s book shows how he got there, and the hits he had to take along the way.
" - San Francisco Chronicle on Rickey.