Mike Marqusee - Anyone but England: Cricket, Race and Class

Winner of the Aberdare Literary Prize, awarded by the British Society of Sports History, 1994

Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award, 1994

An American socialist cricket-lover strips back the games history to reveal venality and racism. The strengths of the book lie in its passion and in the meticulous retelling of crickets development ... Only an outsider who has come to the game late in life could articulate its peculiarities so well. Cricket is refreshed through his eyes

Sunday Times

If you enjoy cricket but despise the stripy tie world of the cricket establishment, Marqusees book is what youve been waiting for. Its beauty and originality is its insistence that it is possible to love the game while understanding that it is a game, nothing more or less ... here is something for the supporter on the bench, not the executive box

Mark Steel

Mike Marqusee is an American, a socialist, and a cricket-lover. The alchemy of this unique combination has contributed to the production of this remarkable book. To call it a book on cricket would be a gross misnomer ... It weaves together the social history of English cricket with the social history of England in a manner which is as unique as it is brilliant. It is doing a sort of CLR James on English cricket ... The book is laced with insightful comments about the relationship between cricket, the nation and the market. Quite fascinating

Prabhat Patnaik, Frontline (India)

The most perceptive, challenging and irreverent book on cricket since CLR James magnificent classic, Beyond a Boundary ... Mike Marqusee has studied the game and the political, commercial and racist ramifications with the thoroughness of a social scientist. CLR James started it all. Marqusee is a most worthy successor. Anyone But England deserves an honoured place in your library

Caribbean Times

The New Cricket Cultures origins can be traced to 1994, and a genuinely different cricket book Anyone But England ... Marqusee used it as a platform to declare his distaste for a whole range of organisations, activities, and methods dear to the conservative English with a focus on cricket

The Australian Magazine

The books argument is powerful and well-sustained. The cricket bosses do not come out of it well, nor do they deserve to. Unfortunately, it is certain that few of them will read it. County members might just be stirred by its polemic, because after all Marqusee actually likes the damn game! And maybe he likes the English too

British Society of Sports History

Mike Marqusee knows and loves cricket and both qualities shine through his brilliant contribution to cricket literature. Neither blinds him to the reality that cricket in Britain is shot through with hypocrisy and a corrupt and vicious nationalism which perverts the supposed ideals of the game. In this, he puts most cricket writers to shame ... His style, while gently ironic, is charged with deadly truth

Salim Salaam, Race and Class

Crickets iconoclast-in-chief

Simon OHagan, Wisden Cricket Monthly

What English cricket has done to deserve him is anyones guess

Marcus Berkman, Wisden Cricket Monthly

A damning study of the history of the game, sure to rock the very foundations of Lords. Anyone But England is not only a must for cricket fans, but a must for anyone interested in the social fabric of this country

Irish World

An unusual and extremely thought provoking book. It is also a unique book which transcends all the known genres of cricket writing ... Even those who do not agree with all that Marqusee has to say on the politics of cricket and the prejudices of the English will accept that he has provided a novel and a much needed perspective on the noblest game of them all

Rudrangshu Mukherjee, The Telegraph (Calcutta)

A fine representative of the vibrant but little known tradition linking cricket and the British left ... His perspective is unusual, and he can write

Matthew Engel, The Guardian

The national games meandering voyage down the proverbial corridor of uncertainty is traced with masterly effect by Marqusee, a cricket-loving American leftie ... Better than CLR James on speed, there are thousands of us whove been waiting years for this

The Modern Review

Anyone But England is written with honesty and serious intentions by an author who wants to see the game escape from its current slough of despond

Andrew Shields, Time Out

Funny, disturbing and deeply provocative ... A ruthless analysis of why the English whine

Hindustan Times

A transatlantic wowser

Michael Henderson, The Times

That splendid American iconoclast

Robin Marlar, Sunday Times

For the true believer of the cricket cult, the game is built on articles of faith. The cult has its saints, its heroes, its cathedral at Lords, and in the shape of Mike Marqusee it has a heretic ... Mike Marqusee never fails to involve and inform

Southeast London Sportscene

Certainly puts the ball tampering affair in its proper perspective. An excellent critical analysis of English cricket

Imran Khan

He writes well, if with a warped intelligence

EW Swanton

A very intelligent book, very cleverly written, with a lot that provokes thought. But I am uneasy about the way that he has a go at just about everything cricketers hold sacred

Christopher Martin-Jenkins, Test Match Special

Mike Marqusee could hardly have made a ruder impact on the summer if he were Keith Chegwyn banging on Ray Illingworths door at seven in the morning with a film crew in tow ... If this doesnt make them break wind in the Test Match Special oxygen tent, nothing will

Kevin Mitchell, The Observer

This is a different kind of cricket book, a very different kind ... Marqusee is withering in his exposure of the racism and hypocrisy prevalent in the English cricket scene

Indian Review of Books

Marqusee has immersed himself in cricket and this book is the result of an enormous exercise in assimilating a sporting culture without absorbing an accompanying bias and subjective national cultural value. This is what makes his book unique, the depth of his understanding of the beauty of the action of cricket ... He writes movingly about both the dancers and the dance ... Among books of the world of sport there are few which also express the sport of the world in all its representation of real life and struggle. Anyone But England is one, a commentary on our times

Chris Searle, Morning Star

The book that everyones talking about ... The elegant and concise accounts of the origin of the game, its romance with the British empire, are a must for all cricket fans ... the book is an entertaining and fascinating exploration of cricket and it will come as a revelation to many

Eastern Eye

Those who love a good moan will be in ecstasy as they plough through these pages ... Anyone But England is perceptive and it will instruct and entertain, but it is unlikely to change anything

David Frith, Wisden Cricket Monthly

A thoroughly researched, historic class analysis of crickets origins and recent controversies

Socialist Outlook

Marqusee has a keen eye for hypocrisy, the quintessential English vice ... the average reader of the Daily Telegraph will find much to agree with in this book. Marqusee has fallen in love with the English game

Adam Sisman, The Observer

Anyone But England is a book for anyone with an interest in cricket which goes beyond merely the runs scored and wickets taken. It shows that the game cannot be isolated from the political, economic and cultural context that it is set in. The author has done a great job in tying together the diverse themes of cricket, the nation and the market