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eBook Le Tour: A History of the Tour de France download

by Geoffrey Wheatcroft

ISBN: 0743449924
Author: Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK; New edition (June 1, 2004)
Language: English
Pages: 320
ePub: 1864 kb
Fb2: 1431 kb
Rating: 4.7
Other formats: azw docx doc lrf
Category: History
Subcategory: Europe

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Since the book was last published in 2007, much has changed.

Since the book was last published in 2007, much has changed. Bradley Wiggins' historic victory in 2012 - the first Briton ever to secure the yellow jersey - brought him a knighthood and garnered more interest in the race than ever before .

The Strange Death of Tory England (2005). Le Tour: A History of the Tour de France (2003, 2007, 2013). Geoffrey Wheatcroft, Most favored nation, The Boston Globe, 2 April 2006. A Kentish Lad, Frank Muir, Corgi Books, 1998, p. 398. Sources. Wheatcroft on The Guardian. Appearances on C-SPAN.

British journalist Geoffrey Wheatcroft’s 2003 (updated 2013 post-Armstrong) general history of the Tour de France. The Tour (like all modern European sports) emerges in response to war as a thoroughly French mix of media, manufacturing towns, and Marxist egalitarianism conspire in the late-19th century to display national strength through an athletic event so demanding it was originally assumed impossible to finish by rich or poor, pro or amateur alike.

The Tour de France, historically, is not lacking in characters and memorable escapades, which has made .

The Tour de France, historically, is not lacking in characters and memorable escapades, which has made it both famous and infamous. My opinion is that Mr. Wheatcroft is just boring, perhaps better suited to write about Franco gastronomic specialties, which in this book he passionatly mentions from time to time, rather than the excitment of the tour, which happens to be the subject. Along the lines of the books by Thompson and Dauncey, but with less of a scholarly feel to it, Wheatcroft's book combines his interest in the Tour de France with a close look at how the race has left its impact on the six-sided country - and vice versa.

Tour de France (Bicycle race) - History, Tour de France (Bicycle race). Books for People with Print Disabilities. The Tour's impact on French culture is also addressed, adding a unique and fascinating study of 20th-century European life. Includes bibliographical references and index. Internet Archive Books. Uploaded by station31. cebu on December 29, 2019. SIMILAR ITEMS (based on metadata). Terms of Service (last updated 12/31/2014).

Le Tour - Geoffrey Wheatcroft. Simon & Schuster UK Ltd. 1st Floor. Geoffrey Wheatcroft is a journalist and historian.

The history of the Tour de France. Receive exclusive news about the Tour. Riding into the future. Bradley Wiggins' historic victory in 2012 - the first Briton ever to secure the yellow jersey - brought him a knighthood and garnered more interest in the race than ever before

CJ. Mainstream Publishing Company, Limited. Tour de France: The History, the Legend, the Riders Graeme Fife Author. CJ.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft's masterly history of the Tour de France's first hundred. Fantastic book about the Tour de France's history and folklore. com User, July 28, 2009.

When Henri Desgrange began a new bicycle road race in 1903, he saw it as little more than a temporary publicity stunt to promote his newspaper. The 60 cyclists who left Paris to ride through the night to Lyons that first July had little idea they were pioneers of the most famous of all bike races, which would reach its centenary as one of the greatest sporting events on earth. Geoffrey Wheatcroft's masterly history of the Tour de France's first hundred years is not just a hugely entertaining canter through some great Tour stories; nor is it merely a homage to the riders whose names—Coppi, Simpson, Mercx, Armstrong—are synonymous with the event's folly and glory. Focusing too on the race's role in French cultural life, it provides a unique and fascinating insight into Europe's 20th century.

Comments: (6)

ACOS

Whew, that was a slog and I felt relief finishing the final chapter! I suspect most people who would consider this book are sports fans looking for a reasonably in-depth and readable guide to the Tour. If you are one of them, keep looking.

There are no overarching threads which would have significantly enhanced the readability of this book. At the end, I still don't know why the Tour became the preeminent race of cycling, interesting important technical or analytical details of the race itself (the derailleur is only briefly mentioned), what distinguishes the athletes from those in other sports, and except for a brief paragraph in the penultimate chapter, the special physical characteristics of the riders. Instead what we get are pages and pages of yearly summaries with names you are seeing for the first time and the details of which are almost impossible to retain as there is no glue of common themes to bind the facts.

While the writer embellishes the book with several cultural and historic references without which it would have been unreadable, the quality of the writing is offset by the style more suited to a newspaper article; there is no flow and you feel you are navigating hurdles in every sentence.

WUNDERKIND

An enjoyable and informative book. I could do without the constant use of French phrases which are not always interpreted for us monolinquists! the background to the tour and the stories of the areas and history are quite entertaining. The events on the tour and some of the smaller quite interesting stories are well told.

Malalrajas

While this books delivers great antidotes in French, it lacks Je ne sais quoi, perhaps readability in English? This is not to say that, I don't enjoy certain quips in another language dispersed here and there, with that tongue in cheek British humor, ala Monty Python that we have grown to enjoy. Thus said, this book lacks fluidity, and was at times hard to follow and even harder to digest. Le Tour could have been better written, it certainly doesn't lack material given the heroic stamina and personalities that it obvious takes to complete in "the gretest race". The Tour de France, historically, is not lacking in characters and memorable escapades, which has made it both famous and infamous. My opinion is that Mr. Wheatcroft is just boring, perhaps better suited to write about Franco gastronomic specialties, which in this book he passionatly mentions from time to time, rather than the excitment of the tour, which happens to be the subject.
I read through the whole thing wishing that their was another book that could deliver the excitment of the Tour, without the boorishness and forced intellectual humor that ends up being overly dry and overly articulated. On a positive note, the word glossary (race specific terms) at the end of the book was a nice touch as was the pictures in the middle section.

Akir

Along the lines of the books by Thompson and Dauncey, but with less of a scholarly feel to it, Wheatcroft's book combines his interest in the Tour de France with a close look at how the race has left its impact on the six-sided country -- and vice versa.

Instead of researching the Tour in historical journals and periodicals, Wheatcroft, an admitted non-expert on the race, gets out there and gives us a felt for what it's really like to experience the race from the viewpoint of the of the people from all walks of French life.

I think the reason I like this book so much is because, after having studied the race itself closely for more than a decade, I needed to see how it fit into the bigger pcture. Once you've read up on all the Tours over the years, you may find yourself in the boat.

komandante

Quite simply, this is the best written, most entertaining book I have read about cycling (I've read about 30 cycling books to date). I was at first quite reluctant to purchase this book; how exciting could a historical recounting of a bike race be? The answer is VERY, if it's written by Geoffrey Wheatcroft.

This author's success comes not from being a die-hard cycling author, but a masterful story teller who interweaves the colorful personalities who participated in Le Tour de France with the social, interpersonal and political impacts of the different eras. This book is a must-read for cycling fans & history-buffs alike. (I can imagine passing-along this book to my father-in-law, who has no interest in cycling but loves reading about the histories of WW1&2.)

My only slight, picky complaint with the book is that the author uses occasional French phrases without translating them. (Note: the phrases are non-cycling specific, & it would be fun to expand my French beyond "peloton", "bidon" & "maillot jaune").

In short, if you love cycling or The Tour, enjoy reading about history, or hearing a well-told story, you owe it to yourself to read this book. Enjoy!!

Yozshubei

I really enjoyed this book. From the eccentric, despotic Henri Desgrange (founder of the Tour de France) to riders such as Merckx, Poulidor, Hinault, Bobet -- and other tales from past Tours de France, you get a very good idea of why the Tour has become part of France's patrimony. Wheatcroft does a marvelous job conveying to people who are new to the Tour and people who've been watching it for years, why it is an obsession for many and why no other sporting event in the world comes close. I love Wheatcroft's descriptions of the French countryside, French manners and food. This is the best book on the Tour.

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