Book Review: Sprinting Through No Man's Land (History of the Tour de France, 1919)(OT)

Sprinting Through No Man's Land: Endurance, Tragedy and Rebirth in the 1919 Tour de France, by Adin Dobkin (Little A, 2021, 295 pp, $24.95)

Intriguing Title, Cool Cover

How many readers know very much about the Tour de France? I think we know it is a bicycle race (probably only for men) in France, probably annually. We probably know of Lance Armstrong, the American who won several Tours and then was caught with his hand in the drug-enhancing cookie jar and lost his trophy. 

We probably know that the Tour winds its way through villages in France over several days (how many?) and that if we lived in Europe, the Tour would be more important to us. Sort of like the Iditarod sled dog race in Alaska, over several days.

An amazing little knowledge of the Tour for this readership who probably spent a lot of time on their bikes many years ago and now ride with their own children.

Sprinting

Not sure the Tour de France should be called a sprint. Being a race over several days and over different kinds of terrains, it is more of a marathon than the 100-yard dash.

No Man's Land

"No man's land" fits for part of the race through France, through cities, towns, and villages and all the land in between be they roads through fields or forests, over hill over dale. . . up and down mountains.

Endurance

The Tour de France is an endurance race (is that an oxymoron?) covering so much varied terrain over so many days and covering so many miles but this book tells of the 1919 race, before racers trained professionally for many months.

Tragedy

The reader will have to discover what the tragedy was and if it really was a tragedy for the race which was run the day after the Treaty of Versailles was signed.

Rebirth

After a war, it can take a long time for a country to recover. The Tour de France helped France come together after World War 1. The book begins with the end of the war and provides much fodder for discussion since we either seem to think recovery is immediate or we just don't think about it at all.

1919

Sprinting begins with a few of the 12 earlier Tour races and gives us a unique picture of a post-war culture and how long it takes to recover. In this instance, it is World War 1 in France, a good lesson for Americans to realize how Iraqis and Afghans are faring after the conflicts in their land. This may be the best lesson in Sprinting. The rest of the book is rather dry and historical. The map, however, comes in handy as does the list of characters - so many and with such unusual names - French!