Chucks!
A Celebration of Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars
Hal Peterson
Skyhorse Publishing
ISBN 978-1-60239-079-9

This book celebrates all things Chuck Taylors. It has an interesting history lesson of the All Star (later the Chuck Taylor All Star) along with photos that really shows you the nuances as the design of the Chuck Taylor was refined over time. It is hard to believe how long the Chuck Taylor was the defacto basketball show worn by high school kids, college players and pros alike.

This is a nice glossy book that has over 100 photos of Chuck Taylors. As I said it gives a nice history of the shoe and the Converse company, their marketing, and the success and failure of the shoes.

I have always worn Chuck Taylors and was very interested in the discussion of the basically 7 year cycle of popularity of the Chuck Taylor. As the author points out it is ironic that this is a shoe that is so much a part of American culture, yet so embraced by the counter culture.

I was also very interested in hearing about the differences in appearance of the "core" shoes and the seasonal special shoes.

The book is subtitled "A Celebration of Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars and it certainly is that. It celebrates everything about the shoe. If there is one complaint I have, it is that a critical eye doesn't really show up in the book. In one section the author talks about how many saw the American made Chuck Taylor as an alternative to sweat shop shoes made by other shoe companies, but now that the shoes are made in China and most certainly sweat shop conditions, a discussion of the repercussions of this is overlooked. Instead, we get a discussion from the owner of a major distributor about the efficiencies of this new process. I dunno, maybe I politicize everything, but I was a bit disappointed that this wasn't challenged. Maybe that much depth doesn't belong in a book that is a "celebration" and maybe I am not one to cast stones as I am wearing a pair of red low tops as I write this.

Overall, this is a quick read, and it is a book I have noticed that people that come over pick up off the stack and flip through, that has to mean something.

Oh yeah, not to turn our site into a link whore, but the author runs a website called Chucks Connection

Dave