Taboo, was written by John Entine. It was published by PublicAffairs in the year 2000 in New York, New York. The version of the book that I had read was the paperback edition, which consisted of 387 pages. The author John Entine is a journalist and Emmy award-winning producer, formerly with NBS and ABC News. Entine also writes on business ethics and brand marketing for newspapers and magazines around the world. His Television Special, "Black Athletes: Fact or Fiction," written with Tom Brokaw, was named the International Sports Film of the Year.

The purpose of Entine's book was to answer the age-old question, "are those of African heritage naturally better athletes?" Entine wrote this book because in a society in which sport is an obsession, and in which it is obvious sport and race are linked, people have been afraid of approaching the subject of race and sport due to the suspicion they would be labeled a racist. But is there another reason why the percentage of blacks represented in sport out number that of their percentage of society? Entine explores this question as well as many others in a professional and scientific fas

Up until this point of the book the main focus has been upon men and sport, now the author looks at that of racial differences in women in sport. This section is not as scientific as some of the other sections but it does make some interesting points. Just as black men have dominated their sports and are more highly represented in sport as compared with society, so are women. In addition, black women tend to dominate sport in the same fashion black men do. An interesting illustration in the book points out that in contests without drug screening tend to increase the performances of white female sprinters. While, black females sprinters tend to fair about the same in both drug filtered and non-drug filtered competitions. The explanation, white female sprinters must use performance-enhancing drugs in order to compete on a competitive level with black female sprinters.

hion, looking at "both sides of the coin," and uses many scientific references to support his findings.

The book continues on give some evidence of just how dominant black athletes are in the world of sport. He gives specific example of how blacks are overly represented in sport as compared with their representation of society. Also, it is mentioned that while people of Asian decent make of 57% of the world's population, they are virtually non-existent in the world of major sport. Entine goes on to show that 494 of the top 500 100-meter dash times and 98 percent of the world's best sprinting times in general are held by those athletes who can trace their ancestry back to West African heritage. To further illustrate this point, Entine points out that all 40 finalists in the last 5 Olympics are of West African descent. Based on population alone (people of West African descent make of about 8% of the world's population), the likelihood of that happening is .00000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 percent,

Some common words found in the essay are:
East Africans, Sports Film, Olympics Kenya, Joe Louis, West African, West Africans, Integration Sports, John Entine, York York, ABC Entine, black athletes, race sport, subject race sport, john entine, represented sport, black white, female sprinters, african descent, subject race, west african, dominate sport, black white athletes, white female sprinters, represented sport compared, west african descent,
Approximate Word count = 1278
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)