The Tour de France, Updated with a New Preface

"Impossible to put down! . . . This is a fascinating and exceptionally well written book . . . social historians of France will find Thompson's study a treat."

— French Politics, Culture & Society

“A well-written and engaging cultural history.”

— Indianapolis News & Star

“Released during the 2006 Tour, Thompson's work raises significant questions that only loom larger in the wake of the doping scandals that rocked the Tour this year . . . Thompson's great contribution to the current debate reflects his process throughout the work. He does not offer pat answers and saccharine bromides about the inherent values in sport that will transcend current controversies and eventually win out for the good of sport and society. Rather, he takes a hard look at how sport, and specifically the Tour, has served as a means for constructing, and contesting, a wide variety of social identities. He locates the tensions that existed, and exist, between competing narratives and teases them out for us. Ultimately, he reminds us that the current controversy regarding doping and the Tour is an important one; for in the face of ever-expanding genetic breakthroughs and the possibility of genetic manipulation, ‘the Tour is likely to be part of a global conversation about an even more fundamental question: what does it mean to be human?’”