On the Shoulders of Giants, Vol 3: Basketball Comes to Harlem

Written by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Narrated by Bob Costas

Best-selling author and NBA all-time leading scorer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar takes listeners on a tour through the segregated days of early basketball. Along the way, hoops icons like Charles Barkley, Julius Erving, and John Wooden share their thoughts, while broadcast legend Bob Costas narrates.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 14, 2009
• ISBN: 9781440760648

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is recognized by Sports Illustrated and Time magazine as history’s greatest basketball player (he is the NBA’s all-time leading scorer). The author of several New York Times bestsellers, Kareem’s previous books include Giant Steps, Kareem, Black Profiles in Courage, A Season on the Reservation, and Brothers in Arms. Since his retirement as a player in the NBA, Kareem has worked as a special assistant coach for the Los Angeles Lakers and acted as a volunteer coach for children on the White Mountain Apache reservation in Whiteriver, Arizona. 

Reviews for On the Shoulders of Giants, Vol 3

[jim53_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

We've kown for a long time that there's more to Kareem than skyhooks. In On the Shoulders of Giants, he shares his passion for history. He describes the Harlem Renaissance from several points of view: the social history that led up to it, the significant thinkers who contributed to it, the black basketball teams that originated there, and finally the jazz music that flourished in Harlem. He ties up each section with a couple of pages about how that facet affected his life. Not superficial but not terribly deep either, the book gives overviews of key topics and fascinating descriptions of key individuals, and it can serve as a guide for further investigation for the reader who is so inclined. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

[Randall H. Borkus · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a critical piece of basketball history, as well as US history that everyone should know about. I really enjoyed reading this.