Mike Marqusee (1953-2015) - journalist, political activist, and author - was born in New York City, and emigrated to Britain in 1971, where he developed a love of cricket.

As well as his many books, Mike published articles in (among others), the Guardian, the Independent, the Daily Telegraph, the Observer, Index on Censorship, BBC History Magazine, New Left Review, Race and Class, The Nation, Colorlines, India Today, Hindustan Times, Indian Express, Frontline, and Outlook. He was a columnist for the Indian newspaper, The Hindu, and for the British left-wing magazine Red Pepper.

In addition to his writing, Mike was active for several decades in numerous campaigns for social justice. In the early 1980s he was a youth worker and trade union activist. For twenty years he was an active member of the Labour Party, and a long-time editor of and contributor to Labour Briefing. In 1995, he helped set up Hit Racism for Six, a campaign against racism in cricket. After leaving the Labour party in 2000, he helped establish both the Stop the War Coalition and Iraq Occupation Focus. On 15 February 2003, he was a speaker at the half million strong anti-war demonstration in New York City. In later years, he was a dedicated campaigner in support of the National Health Service.

In 2005, Mike Marqusee was named an Honorary Faculty Fellow by the University of Brighton in recognition of his 'contribution to the development of a critically-based form of journalistic scholarship in the social, cultural and political nature of contemporary global sport.'

Anyone But England is a detailed exploration into the origins of cricket; the romance, cultural identity, hypocrisy, flaws of governance and glory of the game. Mike Marqusee, an American who fell in love with cricket when he moved to the UK in the 1970s, looks at the history of elitism and empire, and how race and class have always been issues in the game. Scrutinising the long saga of South Africa's exclusion from world cricket, Marqusee charts England's collusion with apartheid, and also details an eye-opening account of Pakistan's controversial 'ball-tampering' tour of England, which provoked intense debate amongst cricket fans about the role of both the media and racism in the modern game. Showing that supporting the game does not mean you need be blind to its flaws, Marqusee's passion and enthusiasm for cricket is threaded through every element of Anyone But England.

Winner of the Aberdare Literary Prize, awarded by the British Society of Sports History, 1994

Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award, 1994

This is a different kind of cricket book, a very different kind ... Marqusee is withering in his exposure of the racism and hypocrisy prevalent in the English cricket scene

Mike Marqusee is an American, a socialist, and a cricket-lover. The alchemy of this unique combination has contributed to the production of this remarkable book. To call it a book on cricket would be a gross misnomer ... It weaves together the social history of English cricket with the social history of England in a manner which is as unique as it is brilliant. It is doing a sort of CLR James on English cricket ... The book is laced with insightful comments about the relationship between cricket, the nation and the market. Quite fascinating

Funny, disturbing and deeply provocative ... A ruthless analysis of why the English whine'

Mike Marqusee knows and loves cricket and both qualities shine through his brilliant contribution to cricket literature. Neither blinds him to the reality that cricket in Britain is shot through with hypocrisy and a corrupt and vicious nationalism which perverts the supposed ideals of the game. In this, he puts most cricket writers to shame ... His style, while gently ironic, is charged with deadly truth

An unusual and extremely thought provoking book. It is also a unique book which transcends all the known genres of cricket writing ... Even those who do not agree with all that Marqusee has to say on the politics of cricket and the prejudices of the English will accept that he has provided a novel and a much needed perspective on the noblest game of them all

Certainly puts the ball tampering affair in its proper perspective. An excellent critical analysis of English cricket

A devastating treatise on the various ills plaguing the game in the land of its birth

An American socialist cricket-lover strips back the game's history to reveal venality and racism. The strengths of the book lie in its passion and in the meticulous retelling of cricket's development ... Only an outsider who has come to the game late in life could articulate its peculiarities so well. Cricket is refreshed through his eyes

Cricket's iconoclast-in-chief

If you enjoy cricket but despise the stripy tie world of the cricket establishment, Marqusee's book is what you've been waiting for. Its beauty and originality is its insistence that it is possible to love the game while understanding that it is a game, nothing more or less ... here is something for the supporter on the bench, not the executive box

A fine representative of the vibrant but little known tradition linking cricket and the British left ... His perspective is unusual, and he can write

The most perceptive, challenging and irreverent book on cricket since CLR James' magnificent classic, Beyond a Boundary ... Mike Marqusee has studied the game and the political, commercial and racist ramifications with the thoroughness of a social scientist. CLR James started it all. Marqusee is a most worthy successor. Anyone But England deserves an honoured place in your library

The New Cricket Culture's origins can be traced to 1994, and a genuinely different cricket book - Anyone But England ... Marqusee used it as a platform to declare his distaste for a whole range of organisations, activities, and methods dear to the conservative English - with a focus on cricket

The book's argument is powerful and well-sustained. The cricket bosses do not come out of it well, nor do they deserve to. Unfortunately, it is certain that few of them will read it. County members might just be stirred by its polemic, because after all Marqusee actually likes the damn game! And maybe he likes the English too

The national game's meandering voyage down the proverbial corridor of uncertainty is traced with masterly effect by Marqusee, a cricket-loving American leftie ... Better than CLR James on speed, there are thousands of us who've been waiting years for this

Anyone But England is written with honesty and serious intentions by an author who wants to see the game escape from its current slough of despond

A transatlantic wowser

For the true believer of the cricket cult, the game is built on articles of faith. The cult has its saints, its heroes, its cathedral at Lord's, and in the shape of Mike Marqusee it has a heretic ... Mike Marqusee never fails to involve and inform

He writes well, if with a warped intelligence

A damning study of the history of the game, sure to rock the very foundations of Lord's. Anyone But England is not only a must for cricket fans, but a must for anyone interested in the social fabric of this country

A very intelligent book, very cleverly written, with a lot that provokes thought. But I am uneasy about the way that he has a go at just about everything cricketers hold sacred

Mike Marqusee could hardly have made a ruder impact on the summer if he were Keith Chegwyn banging on Ray Illingworth's door at seven in the morning with a film crew in tow ... If this doesn't make them break wind in the Test Match Special oxygen tent, nothing will

Marqusee has immersed himself in cricket and this book is the result of an enormous exercise in assimilating a sporting culture without absorbing an accompanying bias and subjective national cultural value. This is what makes his book unique, the depth of his understanding of the beauty of the action of cricket ... He writes movingly about both the dancers and the dance ... Among books of the world of sport there are few which also express the sport of the world in all its representation of real life and struggle. Anyone But England is one, a commentary on our times

The book that everyone's talking about ... The elegant and concise accounts of the origin of the game, its romance with the British empire, are a must for all cricket fans ... the book is an entertaining and fascinating exploration of cricket and it will come as a revelation to many

As intelligent an analysis of the relationship between a country and its national sport as you are likely to find

Surprisingly witty and perceptive (for an American, do we hear you add?) - a fascinating book

An entertaining read, full of delightful information ... it peers beneath the romance of the game to examine commercialism, racism and the role of cricket as some kind of epitome of Englishness

Marqusee's overall project is trying to understand the relationship between cricket and society in England, especially in a period in which the game has been undergoing far-reaching transformation ... Marqusee's book brilliantly captures the deep racism, arrogance, hypocrisy, elitism and classism which still pervades English cricket ... On England and South Africa his account is fascinating ... highly perceptive ...