In 1999 Sir Derek Birley was finally recognised as one of the great writers on cricket, when this magisterial work won Britain's premier award for sports books. Immediately recognised by reviewers as both enormously entertaining and a definitive work that will enjoy immense longevity, it is now re-issued in B-format. A Social History of English Cricket is more than an encylopaedic history of the game's development, from its origins as a pastime for schoolboys and rustics all the way through to the modern one-day competitions with their rainbow clothing and floodlit finishes. It is nothing less than the story of English culture, as mirrored in the changing fortunes of an idiosyncratic sport that has always been a complex repository of manners, hierarchies, politics and, as Derek Birley shows, baser distinctions it would rather deny like hypocrisy and gambling. In considering the game of cricket Derek Birley also writes about the impact of two world wars, the influence of Empire, and, in his words, 'the English caste system', in a survey that, contends Ian Wooldridge, 'will teach an intelligent child of 12 more about their heritage than he or she will ever pick up at school.' But above all, as all commentators have agreed, this is also a superbly witty and humorous book, peopled by larger-than-life cricket characters from Sir Pelham Warner to Denis Compton and John Snow, and - rarely for cricket books - forswearing nostalgia to look forward optimistically to the future of the game just as much as it retrieves the halcyon past. Closing with a warm epilogue about the recent revival of village cricket, A Social History of English Cricket is the tour-de-force of a true cricket enthusiast that will be read for many years to come.

Author Biography

Sir Derek Birley's other books include his other classic cricket book, The Willow Wand, also published by Aurum, and the definitive 3-volume Sport and the Making of Britain. He died in 2002.