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Books > Sport & Leisure > Sports & outdoor recreation > Ball games > Football (Soccer, Association football)
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Ajax, the Dutch, the War - The Strange Tale of Soccer During Europe's Darkest Hour (Paperback, 1st Trade edition)
Loot Price: R430
Discovery Miles 4 300
You Save: R26
(6%)
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Ajax, the Dutch, the War - The Strange Tale of Soccer During Europe's Darkest Hour (Paperback, 1st Trade edition)
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List price R456
Loot Price R430
Discovery Miles 4 300
You Save R26 (6%)
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
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When most people think about the Netherlands, images of tulips and
peaceful pot smoking residents spring to mind. Bring up soccer, and
most will think of Johan Cruyuff, the Dutch player thought to rival
Pele in preternatural skill, and Ajax, one of the most influential
soccer clubs in the world whose academy system for young athletes
has been replicated around the globe (and most notably by Barcelona
and the 2010 world champions, Spain).
But as international bestselling author Simon Kuper writes in
"Ajax, The Dutch, The War: Soccer in Europe During the Second World
War," the story of soccer in Holland cannot be understood without
investigating what really occurred in this country during WWII. For
decades, the Dutch have enjoyed the reputation of having a "good
war." The myth is even resonant in Israel where Ajax is celebrated.
The fact is, the Jews suffered shocking persecution at the hands of
Dutch collaborators. Holland had the second largest Nazi movement
in Europe outside Germany, and in no other country except Poland
was so high a percentage of Jews deported.
Kuper challenges Holland's historical amnesia and uses
soccer--particularly the experience of Ajax, a club long supported
by Amsterdam's Jews--as a window on wartime Holland and Europe.
Through interviews with Resistance fighters, survivors, wartime
soccer players and more, Kuper uncovers this history that has been
ignored, and also finds out why the Holocaust had a profound effect
on soccer in the country.
Ajax produced Cruyuff but was also built by members of the Dutch
resistance and Holocaust survivors. It became a surrogate family
for many who survived the war and its method for producing
unparalleled talent became the envy of clubs around the world. In
this passionate, haunting and moving work of forensic reporting,
Kuper tells the breathtaking story of how Dutch Jews survived the
unspeakable and came to play a strong role in the rise of the most
exciting and revolutionary style of soccer -- "Total Football" --
the world had ever seen.
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