Much like CrossFit itself, the problem in the book is mistaking volume for depth.

There are a few layers here. The first is as the title, and the ways in which CrossFit derives from and is bound within Christianity, specifically Protestantism, and specifically there American non-denominational but sectarian Protestant religion, heretofore "WASPery." Not only does CrossFit hinge well into WASPery in general, it acts as a sort of modern cypher to WASPery now and WASPery past, Muscular Christianity obviously, but also New Thought.

The last point is what, often, gets too little attention. This leads to the author's own description of "Oracle Capitalism". This has a real "this is water" problem, owing to how much of the U.S. identity is and always has been bound up in WASPery. Even in its discontents, which exist in specific response to it. But these great ideas, both of which I am inclined to agree with, are developed fully. In particular, a lot of the evidence for a sort of unified WASPery experience to American Culture is surface level. There is insufficient attention put on mythology or the religious experience in general contra what is specifically WASPery, while there is too much weight put on a sort of other as regards religion as requiring WASPery.

It is a pervasive sort of mixed feeling that I have about the writing here. I think that the arguments are correct, but with so many there could not be sufficient analysis given to any one, so the project feels weaker than I think it is. I also think that there is an interesting missing study about how Libertarianism isn't, because tone, clique, and culture overcomes any ideological commitment to something without that.

In addition, the book is an ethnography of CrossFit . It is a good study. Here are a lot of the compelling and memorable parts of the book. The author does good work relating her own ethnographic studies to her arguments. The weakness here seems to be of restraint. Race and gender are consistently reflected upon, and I kept waiting for a deeper take, but the ones that exist are somewhat surface level, particularly on race. The book is aware of other ethnographies of CrossFit , and the sense that I have is of not wanting to reduplicate that work, but it felt like both the author had more to say and did have good and valuable impressions to provide, based on what bits are there.

The ethnography veers into memoir. This is not a critique. This is the story of the author's participation in and then divergence from CrossFit . It is worth mentioning here that while the author downplays her accomplishments in ®, however one chooses to characterize those, it was a step for her to accomplish incredible things, operating at a level of performance that I have not accomplished in anything, much less a physical thing. None of that factors into the author's conclusions, but it does set the tone of the book and the general sense of disenchantment.

Much of that sense comes from what operates as the next layer to the text of it serving as a history of CrossFit , and, in particular, its sort of mask-off moment in 2020, with subsequent changes that drove changes in the community. Well, temporarily, at any rate: the downer ending is how half the protest quitters slunk back. Here is where you can feel the harm and hurt. But it is not the point of the book, and so not the focus. It is a strong ending, but again, feels like something out of a different project altogether.

I remain most frustrated about the ethnographic angle. While it operates on background so to speak, what bits do show up locked my attention. I want the book that is only about the author's experiences of international CrossFit , because the teaser that there is a conscious push against the WASPery while also an intention to forge a shared cultural experience is some seriously provocative stuff, more so when it allows for reflection between two non-American units.

So, yes, I am reminded in this book of CrossFit , specifically the book's own section of the pseudoscience of it. It is generally noble and I do not want to knock it. But it enacts the Sharpshooter Fallacy by finding a couple definable things, then building a focus around those things. No one choice is wrong, but the cluster itself is not as useful as any one of the choices.

My thanks to the author, Katie Rose Hejtmanek, for writing the book, and to the publisher, NYU Press, for making the ARC available to me.