Books
Basketball Empire: France and the Making of a Global NBA and WNBA
The National Basketball Association (NBA), founded over 75 years ago, is staging a 21st century takeover. Watched in 215 countries and territories worldwide, and with nearly one in three players born and trained overseas, it is no longer just about America. Asking how and why so many French basketball players have joined the NBA and WNBA, Basketball Empire explores what this has meant for the league and the players themselves. Going behind the scenes, it follows the generations of men and women who, since 1950, have followed their passion for the game to create a basketball breeding ground thanks to sports diplomacy. Coming September 2023!
Bill Cain’s "Scrutiny," and His Transformation into an Athlete Ambassador in French Professional Basketball
Like many of his fellow athlete protestors, Bill Cain loved the country of his birth. His “Cain’s Scrutiny” columns sought to make people more aware of social injustices and advocate for improved race relations. As an expatriate basketballer, he embodied and thus had to explain the ideals of his two countries—France and the United States—and thus conveyed the Black American experience through sports while also he also helped set French hoops on a course that decades later made it the largest European exporter of players to the NBA.
The Making of Les Bleus: Sport in France, 1958-2010
The Making of Les Bleus traces the Fifth Republic’s quest to create elite athletes in two global team sports, football and basketball, primarily at the youth level. While the objective of this mission was to improve performances at international competitions, such programs were quickly seized upon to help ease domestic issues and tensions.
“The most detailed history of contemporary French sport to date, The Making of Les Bleus is deeply-researched, wide-ranging, and insightful. By showing how and why the French state invested in unique ways in athletic programs, and interweaving fascinating stories of individual athletes with analysis of institutions, Krasnoff powerfully expands our understanding of the politics of sport in Europe and beyond.”
"Barnstorming Frenchmen: The impact of Paris Université Club's U.S. tours and the individual in sports diplomacy"
This intimate look inside the first two trips to the United States by a French basketball team (Paris Université Club 1956, 1962) provides a window-in to early unofficial sports exchanges between the two countries. Organized by U.S. teammate Martin Feinberg, the trips embodied how basketball enabled the young French players to learn first-hand about U.S. culture and society, including Jim Crow and the two sister republics' differing attitudes towards race. The PUC tours were sterling examples of the merits of sports exchanges as elements of diplomacy, even though they were not government-sponsored or even public-private partnerships.
"Devolution of Les Bleus as a symbol of a multicultural French future"
When France won the World Cup in 1998, the team’s multiethnic composition was feted as a symbol of the nation’s new, postcolonial image. Alas, the feel-good story did not last. Wins became scarce, scandals plagued the team and football was politicized as the public deplored the ‘Playstation junkies’ too individualistic to serve the nation. The infusion of racially charged rhetoric into the discourse of Les Bleus led many to believe that French football is rife with racism and that the national team is not well received by the public. On the contrary, the public is generally supportive of Les Bleus. The negative discourse is an anti-football backlash against the sport’s business climate, one fuelled by traditional disdain for football, and shaded by domestic anxieties. This is the ‘second sports crisis’, an identity crisis less about racial identity and more about the sociocultural norms of being French.
"Resurrecting the nation: the evolution of french sports policy from de gaulle to mitterrand"
"Resurrecting the Nation: The Evolution of French Sports Policy from De Gaulle to Mitterrand" examines the evolution of youth sports policies in France and media's role spurring on the development of elite athletes.