For the Glory

January 11, 2016
British sports hero Liddell (1902–1945), best known as the lead character in the film Chariots of Fire, returns to center stage in this in-depth biography. Hamilton, a sportswriter based in the U.K., gives plenty of attention to Liddell’s famous decision to forgo running the 100-meter race at the 1928 Olympics because he refused, due to religious reasons, to race on a Sunday. This story may be Liddell’s hallmark, but Hamilton presents it as just one in a long line of sacrifices that Liddell would make for his beliefs. By covering Liddell’s entire life, from his birth into a Christian missionary family and athletic career to his nearly 20 years of missionary work in China and his subsequent death there in an internment camp, Hamilton shows Liddell as more than a star who used the spotlight to call attention to his beliefs and himself: he was a truly selfless human being who gave everything he had to others. Hamilton seamlessly combines quotes from research documents, historical facts, and his own way with words (“Liddell had become a public speaker for God”), and his writing feels effortless in this inspiring story.

April 1, 2016
The life of the deeply Christian Olympic champion runner who forsook the glory for missionary work in China. The story was the basis for the award-winning film Chariots of Fire. British sportswriter Hamilton (Touch Wood: The Autobiography of the 1953 Le Mans Winner, 2014, etc.) re-creates the life of Eric Liddell (1902-1944), the Scottish son of missionaries who sensationally won the gold medal in the 400-meter race at the Summer Olympics in Paris in 1924 before becoming a missionary in China like his father. Liddell was an unlikely sports hero, not physically prepossessing but absolutely determined, and he gained inspiration from German Max Sick's How to Become a Great Athlete while a student at the University of Edinburgh. At the same time, he became a committed member and minister for the Union Church. Discovered by impresario-coach Tom McKerchar, Liddell soon smartened up as an athlete, winning numerous championship races with his unique head-thrown-back style. The 400-meter race was not his specialty, and he was not a favorite of the British Olympic Association, which "didn't consider a Scot...as an important figure." Yet when the Olympic schedule was organized, Liddell refused to race his specialty 100 meters because it was scheduled on a Sunday. Considered a traitor to his country by some, he was soon celebrated as a national hero once he won the 400. In his often poignant but also sometimes overly sentimental narrative, Hamilton emphasizes that this was only the beginning of the Liddell legend, as he sought a higher calling as a missionary, moving to the land of his birth, Tientsin, China, to teach science and sports at the Anglo-Chinese College. With the Japanese invasion, however, the expatriate community became vulnerable to attack and then imprisonment in concentration camps like Weihsien, where Liddell spent 694 days practicing his faith and helping other inmates before dying tragically of an undiagnosed brain tumor. A moving hagiography that will appeal to fans of Chariots of Fire as well as Unbroken and similar books.

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February 15, 2016

The 1981 film Chariots of Fire introduced the modern world to British missionary and Olympic champion Eric Liddell (1902-45). Hamilton (The Footballer Who Could Fly) presents a more comprehensive and vivid portrait of an individual who adhered to his principles no matter the circumstances and cost, and left a positive, lasting impression on all those with whom he interacted. Liddell abandoned what could have easily been a phenomenal and lucrative track career before he reached his peak for his true passion: missionary work in restive China with the London Missionary Society. As China fell into turmoil leading up to World Word II, Liddell found himself an ocean away from his wife and three children, one of whom he had not yet seen, and imprisoned in the Japanese internment camp at Wiehsein, where he worked tirelessly to improve the lives of his fellow internees before succumbing to an unimagined end. VERDICT Poignant and tragic yet stimulating, Liddell's personality leaps off the pages and will draw in all readers, from history and sports enthusiasts to casual fans of nonfiction.--Zebulin Evelhoch, Central Washington Univ. Lib.

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