Book Log 2018 #12: Terror in the City of Champions by Tom Stanton
The 1930s were a great time to be a sports fan in Detroit, between the titles won by the pro teams and Joe Louis proving dominant in the ring. Contrasting that was the growing power of a group called the Black Legion, a white supremacist organization whose power grew along with its membership, which included several prominent citizens across the midwest.
The two themes of this book never quite connect - I don't recall that any of the athletes actually joined the Legion - but together they do illustrate an interesting time in American history, between the recovery from the Depresstion and the US entry into World War II. There are also echoes into the present day, and how "economic anxiety" in the same part of the country helped bring Trump to power with his own particular nativist agenda.
This is one of the more successful books I've read in that Erik Larson style of weaving true crime and social history together, very much worth reading.
23 March 2018
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