Book Description

RICHARD M. ABRAMS, a retired U.C. Berkeley professor of modern U.S. history, recreates the many games, some of them now all-but extinct, played in the city streets daily by boys and girls during the turbulent era of the Great Depression, the Second World War, and the increasingly prosperous post-war environment. Abrams was born in Brooklyn in 1932 when cramped urban living quarters were commonplace, and limited income constricted access to organized sports venues and equipment. His was "an outdoor generation" forced to depend on inventive use of scarce resources. From many conversations over the years with his children, colleagues, friends, and students, he came to realize how few people today have any idea of the kinds of recreation that filled daily life for young city people in the years of his own youth. Street Games is a combination of Abrams's reminiscences of the games he played and his placement of those activities in the social history of the period, often highlighting its contrast with the world we know today. The work is compelling, informative, and fast-paced in its description of a mostly lost piece of history. It is also fascinating for its speculations about such things as the hidden meaning of "It" in games of tag, the small regard for safety (helmets? face masks? seat belts?), and the complex character of racism and ethnic tensions in those times. One reader of the manuscript remarked, “I have not read in many years anything that gave me so much pure, sustained pleasure.” RICHARD M. ABRAMS was educated in the public schools of Brooklyn. He earned his BA, MA, and Ph.D. degrees at Columbia University. He began his teaching career at Columbia in 1957. He moved to the University of California in Berkeley in 1961, where he taught until retiring in 2007. He is married to Marcia Ash Abrams, and they have three children and four grandchildren. He has been a visiting professor of history in London, Moscow, Beijing, and Innsbruck, and has lectured widely in Europe and Asia. His other books include: Conservatism in a Progressive Era; The Burdens of Progress; and most recently, America Transformed.