List $18.00

Written by David Halberstam - Audio book performed by Edward Herrmann - Abridged Nonfiction - 2 CASSETTES

Publisher, Random House Audiobooks (1999)

The author of the number one bestseller The Summer of '49 and other seminal books about American sports, politics, and culture now turns his attention to a modern American legend -- Michael Jordan -- whose name alone evokes excellence. Halberstam explores Jordan's character and achievements not only as a professional champion but as a teenager and student athlete. Halberstam also chronicles the commercial forces that have changed the game during Jordan's career and the people behind those forces. And finally, Halberstam documents Jordan's own business acumen, which, together with his athletic ability, has made him into the best-known person on this planet. This is a journalistic triumph, an appraisal and a celebration of the nearly mythical figure that is Michael Jordan.

In Playing for Keeps, David Halberstam takes the first full measure of Michael Jordan's epic career, one of the great American stories of our time. A narrative of astonishing power and human drama, brimming with revealing anecdotes and penetrating insights, the book chronicles the forces in Jordan's life that have shaped him into history's greatest basketball player, and the larger forces that have converged to make him the most famous living human being in the world.

From The Breaks of the Game to Summer of '49, David Halberstam has brought the perspective of a great historian, the inside knowledge of a dogged sportswriter, and the love of a fan to bear on some of the most mythic players and teams in the annals of American sport. With Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls he has given himself his greatest challenge, and produced his greatest triumph. The book is rich with Halberstam's professional signature: incisive, carefully woven human portraits of the major figures. We see the various players and teams the Bulls must overcome on their long, hard journey to six world championships, including Larry Bird and the Celtics, Isiah Thomas and the Pistons, and Magic Johnson and the Lakers. We get a rare insider's view of the dynamics between Jordan, the star, and the others who played critical roles in the championship seasons, including the shrewd, thoughtful Phil Jackson, the enigmatic Scottie Pippen, and the curiously shy Dennis Rodman. In addition, we see the bitter divisions between players and management on the Bulls, and the NBA's interior pressures and conflicts as basketball grows during Jordan's reign into a phenomenally successful big-time celebrity sport. This book is, as well, about fame in America, the forces that create it and its consequences. Among other things, we see how David Falk and Nike launched the campaign that sold Jordan to the world, abetted by a small Oregon ad agency, Wieden and Kennedy, and a struggling young Brooklyn filmmaker named Spike Lee.

The product of tireless on-the-ground reporting suffused with the wisdom and imagination of one of our greatest writers, Playing for Keeps is an audiobook that, in defining Michael Jordan, also helps to define America in the Jordan Era.