Faster, Higher, Stronger, Comrades! Sports, Art, and Ideology in Late Russian and Early Soviet Culture by Tim Harte (review)

80 Volume 49, Number 1 in Irving. Guridy explains how the construction of these two pathbreaking sports venues changed the landscape not only in Texas but nationwide, as other cities carbon-copied the Texas blueprint for success and profitability. The next chapters deal with the integration of the Southwest Conference and the subsequent race to acquire the best African American football players, inevitably resulting in NCAA violations. Guridy also explains how the Texas Rangers moved from Washington, DC. The common thread was how “commercialized sport catalyzed social change by unhinging the historical hierarchies of the Jim Crow era” (79). The San Antonio Spurs and the impact of the Mexican American working-class fan base also has a dedicated chapter. Guridy’s best chapters address how Texas served as the background for two significant events during the sexual revolution: the “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match and the formation of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. The tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, held in the Houston Astrodome, was a turning point for feminism. Millions of television viewers witnessed King’s victory, resulting in the development of the women’s pro tennis tour. The author’s chapter on the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (DCC) “exposed some of the contradictions of the sexual revolution,” including their woeful pay to the hypersexualized way they were used to sell tickets and garner television ratings (213). African American cheerleaders were members. Television producers and directors helped fuel the DCC’s popularity by scanning the sidelines frequently during games. Since this is a book about Texas sports, there is no shortage of newspaper articles to choose from; however, most of the sources are secondary, taken from a wide array of sport history books. Guridy aptly shows, albeit grudgingly, how sports in Texas desegregated certain areas of the social and cultural scene. My one structural complaint is that there is no bibliography, only a notes section. The volume offers fans the genesis of big-time sports and how events in Texas fundamentally altered sports for the better. Guridy’s book adds value to the historiography of sports history through the lens of civil rights, feminism, and the sexual revolution. Women’s studies scholars and Texas historians would benefit greatly by adding this book to their list. —Corye Perez Beene Texas Tech University