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Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. Michael Lewis. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003.
One of the concepts I stress in my own Reading Popular Culture course is the notion of a paradigm shift. Although Thomas Kuhn designed the concept for scientific purposes, paradigm shifts are certainly evident in popular culture. Moneyball by Michael Lewis explores a significant paradigm shift in baseball: namely, why some baseball executives seem to be much better than others are at getting more wins out of fewer dollars. Although the game on the field is ruthlessly competitive, there is much incompetence among the executives and scouts. This book is Lewis's one-year study of Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland Athletics. He investigates why the low-budget As have been more efficient and successful than many other teams in major league baseball. This will be an iconoclastic delight for those who love to see the smaller market teams successfully compete...