The Beast, the Emperor and the Milkman

SHORTLISTED FOR THE TELEGRAPH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2020 - CYCLING BOOK OF THE YEAR
LONGLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019
'A joy.' - Ned Boulting
Every nation shapes sport to test the character traits it most admires.
In The Beast, the Emperor and the Milkman, committed Belgophile and road cycling obsessive Harry Pearson takes you on a journey across Flanders, through the lumpy horizontal rain, up the elbow juddering cobbled inclines, past the fans dressed as chickens and the shop window displays of constipation medicines, as he follows races big, small and even smaller through one glorious, muddy spring.
Ranging over 500 years of Flemish and European history, across windswept polders, along back roads and through an awful lot of beer cafes, Pearson examines the characters, the myths and rivalries that make Flanders a place where cycling is a religion and the riders its lycra-clad priests.

Harry Pearson has been shortlisted for both the William Hill and the Thomas Cook/Daily Telegraph prizes. Slipless in Settle was the 2012 MCC Book of the Year. The Far Corner has been named as one of the fifty greatest sports books of all time by both the Times and the Observer. His book, A Tall Man in a Low Land is the bestselling English language travelogue about Belgium.

Prologue: Brick chimneys and iron men
1. The Final 200 Kilometres
2. A Motor for a Heart
3. Donkeys and Carnivals
4. A Wednesday in Hell
5. Holey Socks and a Cool Head
6. It's a Family Affair
7. Show Me the Money
8. The Bulldog and the Red Guard
9. The Devil and Meester Maertens
10. D'ye Ken Tom Boonen?
11. Pot Bellies and Barbra Streisand
12. Staying Small
Acknowledgements
Index
Picture credits