Tennis great Billie Jean King was always in the thick of things. Ambitiously, she wanted to transform tennis from its country-club domain into a viable profession. She started coed Team Tennis and womenSports magazine, but it was 1973's televised "Battle of the Sexes," when she defeated Bobby Riggs, that sealed her reputation as a superstar. Independent scholar Ware (Title IX: A Brief History with Documents) approaches her subject by alternating chapters on King's life and career with chapters on feminism's history, Title IX legislation, and a historical overview of American women's sports. Mostly, this results in a seamless account of a turbulent time in American women's history, except for some understandably slow-moving sections on political and legislative struggles. Ware astutely places King at the vortex of the change in women's rights, gay causes (precipitated by the 1981 "palimony" suit brought against her), and sports professionalism, leaving no doubt about King's place in 20th-century women's sports. VERDICT Extensive notes ensure this book's value to students of women's history and women's sports as well as Billie Jean King's fans. (Index not seen.)-Kathy Ruffle, Coll. of New Caledonia Lib., Prince George, B.C. (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

In 1973, Billie Jean King, then the best female tennis player in the world, defeated fiftysomething Bobby Riggs before a national television audience in the so-called Battle of the Sexes. It was a symbolic victory and proved to be the catalyst for a tremendous growth spurt in women's competitive sports. By the late seventies, women's participation in high-school and intercollegiate sports had skyrocketed. Ware, a scholar specializing in women's history, presents both a biography of King and a chronological history of women's sports. She smoothly segues between chapters on King and chapters on the sociological landscape in which women compete. The King chapters are fascinating, particularly Ware's exploration of King's commitment to advancing women's tennis, but the best parts of the book deal with the larger issues of sports, especially the legislative battles to pass Title IX (guaranteeing equality in funding women's intercollegiate sports) and the struggle to implement it. An extraordinarily illuminating account of the history of women's sports.--Lukowsky, Wes Copyright 2010 Booklist