THE STORY OF AN AFRICAN GAME is a ground-breaking book, the first to cover in detail the history and experiences of black African cricketers in South Africa. It is long overdue, coming 195 years after the first recorded game of cricket in this country was played at the Green Point Common, Cape Town, in 1808. This is a book that will forever change the way we look at South Africa's cricket history and help us understand where the game is heading in the future.

This book explores how cricket in South Africa was shaped by society and society by cricket. It demonstrates the centrality of cricket in the evolving relationship between culture, sport and politics starting with South Africa as the beating heart of the imperial project and ending with the country as an international pariah. The contributors explore the tensions between fragmentation and unity, on and off the pitch, in the context of the racist ideology of empire, its ‘arrested development’ and the reliance of South Africa on a racially based exploitative labour system. This edited collection uncovers the hidden history of cricket, society, and empire in defining a multiplicity of South African identities, and recognises the achievements of forgotten players and their impact.

This is a very distinctive text that will stand out from the standard, more staid works in sport studies. This is a sophisticated text that will appeal to the maturing readership in the area looking for new perspectives on sport. Tara Brabazon is very well known in Australia, both in academia and as a journalist. Other texts in this area are all edited collections.