War Minus The Shooting
Name : War minus the shooting Author : Mike Marqusee Year of Publication : Reprinted in 2021, Original edition : 1996 Genre : Non-fiction, Cricket Rating : *** 1/2 ( Three and a half stars out of 5) Mike Marqusee concocts a 1996 cricket World cup based travelogue with generous servings of George Orwell and C.L.R.James. The book's biggest strength is the author's perspicacity in anticipating today's trends of globalization, cricket and politics way back in 1996 itself. He sees how multinational corporations try to capture the soul of cricket, is apprehensive about how the Indian middle classes are falling prey to Hindu nationalism and wonders about the political future of Imran Khan. And, there is a bit of cricket too lest one forgets. A book written amidst the hurly-burly of a tightly packed schedule involving travel across the Indian subcontinent has not lost it's relevance even in 2022 and that is the book's biggest strength.