John Wooden, UCLA, and the Dynasty That Changed College Basketball by John Matthew Smith (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2013

402 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY The Sons of Westwood: John Wooden, UCLA, and the Dynasty That Changed College Basketball By John Matthew Smith (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2013. Pp. 334. Illustrations, notes, index. Clothbound, $90.00; paperbound, $24.95.) For good reason, historians revel in To that stormy sea of American examining periods rife with clashes culture in the late-sixties and mid- of cultural values, clashes that can seventies, Smith adds the stories of stem from differences in generations, some of Wooden’s most accomplished regions, religion, politics, and race. players, notably Lew Alcindor (now In the case of John Wooden and the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), Bill Walton, basketball dynasty he built at UCLA and Wooden’s first great African from 1948 to 1975, all of those fac- American player Walt Hazzard, a tors resulted in on- and off-the-court young man who left the ghetto of West disagreements between coach and Philadelphia for what he believed athletes. Significantly, the disagree- was the racial paradise of UCLA and ments never hindered the team’s Southern California. While Alcindor’s success, and almost forty years since difficulties with his coach came from he coached his last game, Wooden his own growing racial awareness and remains a popular figure. Walton’s came from his opposition to John Matthew Smith cautions that the Vietnam War, Hazzard’s objections “in the popular culture, adulators have were more fundamental to the style constructed a sanitized version of of basketball Wooden favored: “The UCLA’s past,” a narrative that excludes Hoosier coach held steadfast to… any reference to blemishes—includ- a philosophy founded on simplic- ing Wooden’s reluctance to banish ity and structure. The Philadelphian booster-bandit Sam Gilbert from the brought an urban East Coast ethos to UCLA program—in an effort to my- the West Coast, a style shaped by his thologize the coach as the “Wizard of experiences competing in playground Westwood.” Smith has, instead, pro- pickup games” (p. 34). duced a thoroughly researched history Smith’s account of Wooden and his that examines not only Wooden, his tenure at UCLA offers no information Depression-era values, and his often that would strike sport and cultural fabricated image, but the reactions historians as especially new, but the of his players and some of his critics. author has succeeded in interweaving Smith quotes journalist Herbert War- Wooden’s story with those of his play- ren Wind: “He is an anachronism, ers, and that narrative style reveals John Wooden—an island of James some of the thorniest and most de- Whitcomb Riley in a sea of Ken Kesey, structive issues of a turbulent period the Grateful Dead, Terry Southern, and in American culture. That Smith ably Jerry Rubin” (p. 158). illustrates these issues within the con- REVIEWS 403 text of the most successful program Angeles freeway traffic in 1948, the in American intercollegiate sports is a year he left Indiana for UCLA: “John noteworthy accomplishment. Wooden wanted to turn around, but Any review of The Sons of West- it was too late. Indiana was long gone wood would be incomplete if it failed in his rearview mirror” (p. 1). Two to praise Smith’s writing style. The short sentences that effectively say it book is interesting and readable all. The rest is historical exegesis and largely because of the writer’s voice. a great read. Smith begins his first chapter by adopting Wooden’s point of view as DENNIS GILDEA is Professor of Com- he struggled to negotiate the alien Los munications at Springfield College. Detroit’s Cold War: The Origins of Postwar Conservatism By Colleen Doody (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2013. Pp. 192. Illustrations, notes, works cited, index. $50.00.) More than twenty years after the 1991 the mid-to late twentieth century, as collapse of the Soviet Union, few a case study for her inquiry. Union people beyond historians and other membership peaked during the 1940s scholars remember the intensity of and 1950s, and the American Midwest the Cold War. However, its influence was clearly the world’s industrial heart- is still felt today whenever political land. Many industrial cities in Indiana conservatives rail against liberals and and Ohio were immersed in the same denounce civil rights initiatives and political forces as Detroit during this unions as un-American, anti-freedom, era, but the latter city was the capital of and socialistic. Colleen Doody’s the American labor movement and the Detroit’s Cold War: The Origins of fourth largest urban center in the U.S., Postwar Conservatism is a brief but with a large, growing African American well-researched book that explores population and an active civil rights the origins of modern conservatism in movement. During these years, the the United States, and largely debunks author argues, the key elements of the the long-held notion that Americans modern conservative ethos coalesced: emerged from the New Deal and antipathy toward centralized “Big World War II with a liberal consensus Government”; an embrace of religious regarding the political economy and conservatism, especially among the society at-large. city’s large Catholic population; a cel- Doody uses Detroit, the industrial ebration of laissez-faire capitalism; and powerhouse of the nation for most of militant anti-Communism. .

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