--- product_id: 20544826 title: "Concussion" price: "NZ$56" currency: NZD in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.nz/products/20544826-concussion store_origin: NZ region: New Zealand --- # Concussion **Price:** NZ$56 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Concussion - **How much does it cost?** NZ$56 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.nz](https://www.desertcart.nz/products/20544826-concussion) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • Dr. Bennet Omalu discovered something he could not ignore. The NFL tried to silence him. His courage would change everything. “A gripping medical mystery and a dazzling portrait of the young scientist no one wanted to listen to . . . a fabulous, essential read.”—Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Jeanne Marie Laskas first met the young forensic pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu in 2009, while reporting a story for GQ that would go on to inspire the movie Concussion . Omalu told her about a day in September 2002, when, in a dingy morgue in downtown Pittsburgh, he picked up a scalpel and made a discovery that would rattle America in ways he’d never intended. Omalu was new to America, chasing the dream, a deeply spiritual man escaping the wounds of civil war in Nigeria. The body on the slab in front of him belonged to a fifty-year-old named Mike Webster, aka “Iron Mike,” a Hall of Fame center for the Pittsburgh Steelers, one of the greatest ever to play the game. After retiring in 1990, Webster had suffered a dizzyingly steep decline. Toward the end of his life, he was living out of his van, tasering himself to relieve his chronic pain, and fixing his rotting teeth with Super Glue. How did this happen?, Omalu asked himself. How did a young man like Mike Webster end up like this? The search for answers would change Omalu’s life forever and put him in the crosshairs of one of the most powerful corporations in America: the National Football League. What Omalu discovered in Webster’s brain—proof that Iron Mike’s mental deterioration was no accident but a disease caused by blows to the head that could affect everyone playing the game—was the one truth the NFL wanted to ignore. Taut, gripping, and gorgeously told, Concussion is the stirring story of one unlikely man’s decision to stand up to a multibillion-dollar colossus, and to tell the world the truth. Review: If you are interested in exploring the dark underbelly of that world Concussion is a must-read. - I have to admit from the start that I am far too close to the subject of concussions and CTE to write an objective review of Jeanne Marie Laskas’s outstanding best-selling book, Concussion. I can say, however, as someone who knows many of the book’s dramatis personae personally, who has witnessed first-hand what happens when as Laskas writes, “professional sports, Science, Medicine, Politics, Law, Families suffering, guys going crazy, beating up wives, guys killing themselves” and social media collide; who has seen what happens when those with money and power, big egos, and a firsthand WWE education for self-promotion, seize control of the concussion narrative from the scientists, that if you are interested in exploring the dark underbelly of that world Concussion is a must-read. Jeanne Marie Laskas is a brilliant writer and I found that I took my time to actually savour the book. I did not want it to end. I was like reading a real life mystery thriller. So many of the back stories that I had been wondering about were unfolding page by page. There was so much packed into this book that I believe most of the readers may not connect but, none-the less will grasp but will be looking for a sequel to fill in the questions many have after reading the book. But before you crack open the book, you need to understand one thing: it bears only a passing resemblance to the movie, and tells a very different story, one that needed to be told, but one that, even now, hasn’t been fully told. The book is not nearly so much about Dr. Omalu’s David and Goliath battle with the National Football League over telling the truth about chronic traumatic encephalopathy. It is not so much about how Dr. Omalu’s American dream was, as one movie reviewer put it, “waylaid by naysayers” (a familiar story for anyone who has read League of Denial or seen the Frontline documentary, but one which is re-told within the book’s pages) - although it is certainly worth reading to hear Dr. Omalu’s insider perspective on that battle. What sets the book apart, in my view, and where it breaks new ground only comes in the last 100 or so pages, which tells the story of how Dr. Omalu’s work was essentially co-opted by one man, Chris Nowinski from the Sports Legacy Institute (now renamed Concussion Legacy Foundation just weeks prior to the release of this book) , a man who was “neither a doctor nor a scientist … [but] a guy from Boston with his own very bad headache who had become a self-appointed brain advocate.” As someone who has spent the past 16 years in the cutthroat and competitive world of Concussion, Inc., and whose journey both intersects and parallels Dr. Omalu’s in so many respects, I know all too well why Dr. Omalu traces the beginning of his own “regrettable quagmire” in the “shady world of concussions in sports” to the day he received a phone call from Mr. Nowinski in November 2006. For it was that January 18, 2007 front page article in the Times that not only changed Dr. Omalu’s life forever, and thrust both Messrs. Alan Schwarz (NYT) and Nowinski into the concussion spotlight, but, as result of the unmatched power of the New York Times and SLI’s well-oiled publicity machine, allowed them to control and shape the media narrative about concussions and CTE, for better or in many cases, in my view, for worse, for the past decade. In the end, Concussion is an all-too-sad reminder that America is no longer a land where “people play [ ] fair. … [A] land where you d[o] honest work and work [ ] hard and harder still and because of your hard work you earn [ ] respect.” As both Dr. Omalu and I know all too well, it is instead a land filled with “jealousy, envy, rancor, [and] meanness.” And I am left with a haunting, unanswered question: Where would we be now if Dr. Omalu had been supported and encouraged to continue to study CTE, its causes, and potential remedies. . Review: An excellent scientific biography - Even if you're not much of a football fan, you may remember some controversy a few years back when the NFL, confronted with evidence that their players were in danger of permanent brain damage, established some new rules intended to tone down the worst of the inherent roughness of football and prevent players who had sustained a head injury from going back onto the field until fully recovered. A lot of fans thought that was sort of a sissy move: after all, the violence of huge, solidly-built men slamming into each other was part of the thrill of the game, and the risk of injury has always been part of any sport. In this case, however, the players really hadn't been in a position to make an informed decision about risks and rewards. Anecdotal evidence and independent studies of the effects of multiple concussions in rats had suggested for years that what happened on the football field couldn't possibly be good for the brain, but the NFL quickly arranged its own team of experts, and they insisted there was no danger. Then, one day in 2002, a young medical examiner in Pittsburgh, acting on a hunch, decided in the course of a routine autopsy to take a closer look at the brain of a pro football player. The brain belonged to Hall of Famer "Iron Mike" Webster, who had, in the final years of his life, become increasingly violent, irrational, and paranoid. The medical examiner, Bennet Omalu, was a Nigerian immigrant, driven and curious, protégé of the celebrated forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht. What he discovered in Webster's brain would set in motion a chain of events that would ruin careers, expose cover-ups, and very likely save lives. It's a true story that, even without embellishment, reads like the plot of a novel. Jeanne Marie Laskas has never written a novel, but she's well-known for her creative, intimate narrative nonfiction - and now she has turned the literary gifts that served her so well over the course of a trilogy of memoirs to this tale of sports and science. Readers interested exclusively in the medical and/or legal aspects of the NFL head-trauma controversy might well be advised to look elsewhere, as "Concussion" is first and foremost Dr. Omalu's story - but even they might find this lively little book a genial supplement to the more comprehensive or technical literature. Laskas's portrait of the quirky neuropathologist, though not always flattering (Omalu can be inconsistent and naive), is suffused with warmth and admiration. Although Omalu's work on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, what I'd picked up the book to read about in the first place, is barely alluded to in the first 85 pages, so engaging is Laskas's account of her subject's early life and education, and so quickly did the pages of smooth prose seem to turn themselves, that I hardly noticed the delay. "Concussion" would be worth reading for the inherent interest of the story alone, but Laskas's presentation is, for the most part, an asset. As her Acknowledgements make clear, she researched her story with the thoroughness of a journalist, but she relates it with the vividness and flow of that sometimes enigmatic subgenre, the nonfiction novel. Instead of dumping information on us, she often recreates events and conversations "as accurately as an informed imagination will allow." Unfortunately, I have a couple of minor quibbles with her style. Her alternating use of past and present tenses in different chapters or sections of the book didn't really work for me. Done right, a shift from past to present tense can add tension and immediacy to a narrative, but there didn't seem to be any rule governing Laskas's decision to use one or the other, and it felt a bit sloppy. I was also mildly confused by occasional passages printed in italics that seemed to be written in Dr. Omalu's own voice, unsure whether these were truly Omalu's own words or Laskas's creative reconstruction of his thought process. (It's the former, but that isn't made clear until the Acknowledgements.) I can't help wanting to call special attention to the wisdom and understanding Laskas brings to the parts of the book that describe Omalu's struggle with depression as a young adult. I don't know whether Laskas (or someone very close to her) has actually suffered from depression, or if she just listened to Omalu's own account with unusual empathy, but I can say for certain that she *gets* it. Seldom have I read before, even in books specifically about the subject of depression, anything like this: "Depression starts like a membrane, a shield you can't pierce, the internal world so vivid and nagging, the external world right *there*, right in front of you. He felt angry at the world for being so difficult to enter. . . . Depression is like a virus festering in your mind, and the discovery of it can cripple before it cures. . . . Depression isn't a thing that lifts or disappears just because of a change of scenery. The voice follows you no matter where you go, reminding you that you are worthless." That's some powerful stuff - and with black sufferers being less likely than whites, and men less likely than women, to seek treatment for depression, I can't thank Laskas and Omalu enough for giving the world the story of a Nigerian man who struggled in that black fog for years, then emerged to accomplish great things. ## Features - Concussion is the riveting, unlikely story of Dr. Bennet Omalu, the pathologist who made one of the most significant medical discoveries of the twenty-first century, a discovery that challenges the existence of America’s favorite sport and puts Omalu in the crosshairs of football’s most powerful corporation: the NFL. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #814,620 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #281 in Football (Books) #361 in Football Biographies (Books) #440 in Scientist Biographies | | Customer Reviews | 4.4 out of 5 stars 943 Reviews | ## Images ![Concussion - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71f2bItvZcL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ If you are interested in exploring the dark underbelly of that world Concussion is a must-read. *by B***H on July 24, 2017* I have to admit from the start that I am far too close to the subject of concussions and CTE to write an objective review of Jeanne Marie Laskas’s outstanding best-selling book, Concussion. I can say, however, as someone who knows many of the book’s dramatis personae personally, who has witnessed first-hand what happens when as Laskas writes, “professional sports, Science, Medicine, Politics, Law, Families suffering, guys going crazy, beating up wives, guys killing themselves” and social media collide; who has seen what happens when those with money and power, big egos, and a firsthand WWE education for self-promotion, seize control of the concussion narrative from the scientists, that if you are interested in exploring the dark underbelly of that world Concussion is a must-read. Jeanne Marie Laskas is a brilliant writer and I found that I took my time to actually savour the book. I did not want it to end. I was like reading a real life mystery thriller. So many of the back stories that I had been wondering about were unfolding page by page. There was so much packed into this book that I believe most of the readers may not connect but, none-the less will grasp but will be looking for a sequel to fill in the questions many have after reading the book. But before you crack open the book, you need to understand one thing: it bears only a passing resemblance to the movie, and tells a very different story, one that needed to be told, but one that, even now, hasn’t been fully told. The book is not nearly so much about Dr. Omalu’s David and Goliath battle with the National Football League over telling the truth about chronic traumatic encephalopathy. It is not so much about how Dr. Omalu’s American dream was, as one movie reviewer put it, “waylaid by naysayers” (a familiar story for anyone who has read League of Denial or seen the Frontline documentary, but one which is re-told within the book’s pages) - although it is certainly worth reading to hear Dr. Omalu’s insider perspective on that battle. What sets the book apart, in my view, and where it breaks new ground only comes in the last 100 or so pages, which tells the story of how Dr. Omalu’s work was essentially co-opted by one man, Chris Nowinski from the Sports Legacy Institute (now renamed Concussion Legacy Foundation just weeks prior to the release of this book) , a man who was “neither a doctor nor a scientist … [but] a guy from Boston with his own very bad headache who had become a self-appointed brain advocate.” As someone who has spent the past 16 years in the cutthroat and competitive world of Concussion, Inc., and whose journey both intersects and parallels Dr. Omalu’s in so many respects, I know all too well why Dr. Omalu traces the beginning of his own “regrettable quagmire” in the “shady world of concussions in sports” to the day he received a phone call from Mr. Nowinski in November 2006. For it was that January 18, 2007 front page article in the Times that not only changed Dr. Omalu’s life forever, and thrust both Messrs. Alan Schwarz (NYT) and Nowinski into the concussion spotlight, but, as result of the unmatched power of the New York Times and SLI’s well-oiled publicity machine, allowed them to control and shape the media narrative about concussions and CTE, for better or in many cases, in my view, for worse, for the past decade. In the end, Concussion is an all-too-sad reminder that America is no longer a land where “people play [ ] fair. … [A] land where you d[o] honest work and work [ ] hard and harder still and because of your hard work you earn [ ] respect.” As both Dr. Omalu and I know all too well, it is instead a land filled with “jealousy, envy, rancor, [and] meanness.” And I am left with a haunting, unanswered question: Where would we be now if Dr. Omalu had been supported and encouraged to continue to study CTE, its causes, and potential remedies. . ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ An excellent scientific biography *by R***S on January 2, 2016* Even if you're not much of a football fan, you may remember some controversy a few years back when the NFL, confronted with evidence that their players were in danger of permanent brain damage, established some new rules intended to tone down the worst of the inherent roughness of football and prevent players who had sustained a head injury from going back onto the field until fully recovered. A lot of fans thought that was sort of a sissy move: after all, the violence of huge, solidly-built men slamming into each other was part of the thrill of the game, and the risk of injury has always been part of any sport. In this case, however, the players really hadn't been in a position to make an informed decision about risks and rewards. Anecdotal evidence and independent studies of the effects of multiple concussions in rats had suggested for years that what happened on the football field couldn't possibly be good for the brain, but the NFL quickly arranged its own team of experts, and they insisted there was no danger. Then, one day in 2002, a young medical examiner in Pittsburgh, acting on a hunch, decided in the course of a routine autopsy to take a closer look at the brain of a pro football player. The brain belonged to Hall of Famer "Iron Mike" Webster, who had, in the final years of his life, become increasingly violent, irrational, and paranoid. The medical examiner, Bennet Omalu, was a Nigerian immigrant, driven and curious, protégé of the celebrated forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht. What he discovered in Webster's brain would set in motion a chain of events that would ruin careers, expose cover-ups, and very likely save lives. It's a true story that, even without embellishment, reads like the plot of a novel. Jeanne Marie Laskas has never written a novel, but she's well-known for her creative, intimate narrative nonfiction - and now she has turned the literary gifts that served her so well over the course of a trilogy of memoirs to this tale of sports and science. Readers interested exclusively in the medical and/or legal aspects of the NFL head-trauma controversy might well be advised to look elsewhere, as "Concussion" is first and foremost Dr. Omalu's story - but even they might find this lively little book a genial supplement to the more comprehensive or technical literature. Laskas's portrait of the quirky neuropathologist, though not always flattering (Omalu can be inconsistent and naive), is suffused with warmth and admiration. Although Omalu's work on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, what I'd picked up the book to read about in the first place, is barely alluded to in the first 85 pages, so engaging is Laskas's account of her subject's early life and education, and so quickly did the pages of smooth prose seem to turn themselves, that I hardly noticed the delay. "Concussion" would be worth reading for the inherent interest of the story alone, but Laskas's presentation is, for the most part, an asset. As her Acknowledgements make clear, she researched her story with the thoroughness of a journalist, but she relates it with the vividness and flow of that sometimes enigmatic subgenre, the nonfiction novel. Instead of dumping information on us, she often recreates events and conversations "as accurately as an informed imagination will allow." Unfortunately, I have a couple of minor quibbles with her style. Her alternating use of past and present tenses in different chapters or sections of the book didn't really work for me. Done right, a shift from past to present tense can add tension and immediacy to a narrative, but there didn't seem to be any rule governing Laskas's decision to use one or the other, and it felt a bit sloppy. I was also mildly confused by occasional passages printed in italics that seemed to be written in Dr. Omalu's own voice, unsure whether these were truly Omalu's own words or Laskas's creative reconstruction of his thought process. (It's the former, but that isn't made clear until the Acknowledgements.) I can't help wanting to call special attention to the wisdom and understanding Laskas brings to the parts of the book that describe Omalu's struggle with depression as a young adult. I don't know whether Laskas (or someone very close to her) has actually suffered from depression, or if she just listened to Omalu's own account with unusual empathy, but I can say for certain that she *gets* it. Seldom have I read before, even in books specifically about the subject of depression, anything like this: "Depression starts like a membrane, a shield you can't pierce, the internal world so vivid and nagging, the external world right *there*, right in front of you. He felt angry at the world for being so difficult to enter. . . . Depression is like a virus festering in your mind, and the discovery of it can cripple before it cures. . . . Depression isn't a thing that lifts or disappears just because of a change of scenery. The voice follows you no matter where you go, reminding you that you are worthless." That's some powerful stuff - and with black sufferers being less likely than whites, and men less likely than women, to seek treatment for depression, I can't thank Laskas and Omalu enough for giving the world the story of a Nigerian man who struggled in that black fog for years, then emerged to accomplish great things. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ It's an "America's Favorite Pasttime" story - the NFL conflict hooks you in *by M***N on November 24, 2015* There is sooo much going on in this book. This is not a book you read once and put aside. It's an "America's Favorite Pasttime" story - the NFL conflict hooks you in. Mike Webster, Terry Long, Andre Watts, all American heroes. What drove them mad? You want to know. It's an immigrant story - a young Nigerian determined to make the world a better place comes to the USA and makes good. But at what price? It's a big business story - As with the tobacco industry, there is no room in the NFL for anyone who questions the "integrity of the game" and the little guy (Omalu) gets squashed. It's a physician story - not unlike Oliver Sacks, Omalu is driven by his passion for the brain, to understand it. and contribute to science. And it's a parent story - a must read for everyone with children in contact sports of any sort. Lots to learn, lots to think about. Definitely an important book. ## Frequently Bought Together - Concussion - Feed - Sheets (1) --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.nz/products/20544826-concussion](https://www.desertcart.nz/products/20544826-concussion) --- *Product available on Desertcart New Zealand* *Store origin: NZ* *Last updated: 2026-05-16*