Today's calender is set in the minds of many people by the World Series, Wimbledon, the Super Bowl, and the World Cup, rather than by months and days. Sport must mean something. What? Richard Mandell's Sport: A Cultural History shows that sport has always vividly illustrated and reinforced the existing social and moral order. Considering that much of modern sport has evolved in England and America, it is remarkable that so few comprehensive serious studies of sport have appeared in English. This fascinatingly written, generously illustrated volume fills a gap in the literature of world cultural history. The author deals here not only with sport in the classical world where the Olympics were born, but also with sport in early industrial England, China, Japan, and modern America.

Sport has played a central role in modern Ireland's history. This collection of chapters, contributed by some of Ireland's most preeminent historians, showcases the richness and complexity of Ireland's sporting heritage. This book was published as a special issue of Sport in Society.

In The New American Sport History sixteen scholars, many of them among the best known in the field, explore topics as diverse as the historical debate over black athletic superiority, the "selling" of sport in society, the eroticism of athletic activity, sexual fears of women athletes, and the marketing of the marathon. In line with the changing nature of sport history as a field of study, this volume focuses less on "traditional" topics and more on themes of class, gender, race, ethnicity, and national identity, which also define the larger parameters of social and cultural history. It is the first anthology to situation sport history within the broader fields of social history and cultural studies. Contributors are Melvin L. Adelman, William J. Baker, Pamela L. Cooper, Mark Dyreson, Gerald R. Gems, Elliott J. Gorn, Allen Guttmann, Stephen H. Hardy, Peter Levine, Donald J. Mrozek, Michael Oriard, S. W. Pope, Benjamin G. Rader, Steven A. Riess, Nancy L. Struna, and David K. Wiggins.

The Routledge Handbook of Sport History is a new and innovative survey of the discipline of sport history. Global in scope, it examines the key contemporary issues in sports historiography, sheds light on previously ignored topics, and sets an intellectual agenda for the future development of the discipline. The book explores both traditional and non-traditional methodologies in sport history, and traces the interface between sport history and other fields of research, such as literature, material culture and the digital humanities. It considers the importance of key issues such as gender, race, sexuality and politics to our understanding of sport history, and focuses on innovative ways that the scholarship around these issues is challenging accepted discourses. This is the first handbook to include a full section on Indigenous sport history, a topic that has often been ignored in sport history surveys despite its powerful upstream influence on contemporary sport. The book also reflects carefully on the central importance of sport history journals in shaping the development of the discipline. This book is an essential reference for any student, researcher or scholar with an interest in sport history or the relationship between sport and society. It will also be fascinating reading for any historians looking for fresh perspectives on contemporary historiography or social and cultural history.

Throughout history, potters, sculptors, painters, poets, novelists, cartoonists, song-writers, photographers, and filmmakers have recorded and tried to make sense of boxing. From Daniel Mendoza to Mike Tyson, boxers have embodied and enacted our anxieties about race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. In her encyclopedic investigation of the shifting social, political, and cultural resonances of this most visceral of sports, Kasia Boddy throws new light on an elemental struggle for dominance whose weapons are nothing more than fists. Looking afresh at everything from neoclassical sculpture to hip-hop lyrics, Boddy explores the ways in which the history of boxing has intersected with the history of mass media. Boddy pulls no punches, looking to the work of such diverse figures as Henry Fielding and Spike Lee, Charlie Chaplin and Philip Roth, James Joyce and Mae West, Bertolt Brecht and Charles Dickens in an all-encompassing study that tells us just how and why boxing has mattered so much to so many.

The field of sport history is a relatively new research domain, situated at the intersection of a number of disciplines and sub-disciplines. This interdisciplinarity has created interesting avenues for growth and fresh thinking but also inherent problems of coherence and identity. Making Sport History examines the development of an academic community around sport history, exploring the roots of the discipline, its current boundaries, borders and challenges, and looking ahead at future prospects. Written by a team of world-leading sport historians, with commentaries from scholars working outside of the sport historical mainstream, the book considers key themes in the historiography of sport, including: The relationship between history, sport studies and physical education Comparative analysis of the role of historians in the writing of sport history Modern and post-modern approaches to sport history Race, gender and the sport historical establishment The role of scholarly organisations, conferences and journals in discipline-building Presenting new perspectives on what constitutes sport history and its core methodologies, the book helps explain why historians have become interested in sport, why they’ve chosen the topics they have, and how their work has influenced the wider world of history and been influenced by it. Making Sport History is essential reading for any advanced student, scholar or researcher with an interest in sport history, historiography, or the history and philosophy of the social sciences.

This is a fundamental text for the study of sport history. It answers the ‘why,’ ‘how,’ and ‘what’ questions, introducing the key principles and practices of sport history and walking the reader through the fascinating stories, debates, issues, and national and international narratives that constitute the history of sport. The book provides an overview of the field and the various professional roles assumed by practitioners, such as researchers, academics, and public historians. It is brief, crisp, and to the point. The main general topics of interest within the field – gender, race, nationalism, religion, sport and leisure, and megaevents – are covered with introductory vignettes, stories of interest, a wide variety of theoretical frameworks, and relevant historiography in the most current and timely text of its kind. Each chapter provides a list of further readings for more in-depth study. Students are taught how to conduct research and present their findings in a variety of mediums, and teaching and publication tips are offered for educators. Sport History: The Basics is essential reading for any student on a sport-related degree course or with an interest in social and cultural history. It is also fascinating reading for anybody with a general interest in sport.

From its early days as a sport to build “muscular Christianity” among young men flooding nineteenth-century cities to its position today as a global symbol of American culture, basketball has been a force in American society. It grew through high school gymnasiums, college pep rallies, and the fits and starts of professionalization. It was a playground game, an urban game, tied to all of the caricatures that were associated with urban culture. It struggled with integration and representations of race. Today, basketball’s influence seeps into film, music, dance, and fashion. Hoops tells the story of the reciprocal relationship between the sport and the society that received it. While many books have celebrated specific aspects of the game, Thomas Aiello presents the only contemporary cultural history of the sport from the street to the highest levels of professional mens and womens competition. He argues that the game has existed in a reciprocal relationship with the broader culture, both embodying conflicts over race, class, and gender and serving a s public theater for them. Aiello places cultural icons like Bill Russell, Michael Jordan, and Kobe Bryant in the context of their times and explores how the sport negotiated controversies and scandals. Hoops belongs on the bookshelf of every reader interested in the history of basketball, sports, race, urban life, and pop culture in America.

Short-listed for the North American Society for Sport History Book Award 2003. Alcohol is never far from sporting events. Although popular thinking on the effects of drinking has changed considerably over time, throughout history sport and alcohol have been intimately linked. The Victorians, for example, believed that beer helped to build stamina, whereas today any serious athlete must abstain from the demon drink. Yet despite current prohibitions and the widespread acceptance of alcohols deleterious effects, the uneasy alliance of sport with alcohol remains culturally entrenched. It is common for sporting celebrities to struggle with alcoholism, and teams are often encouraged to bond by drinking together. Indeed, many of todays major sporting sponsors are breweries and manufacturers of alcoholic drinks. From hooliganism to commerce, from advertising and sponsorship to health and fitness, if there is one thing that brings athletes, fans and financial backers together it must be beer. This cultural history of drinking and sport examines the roles masculinity, class and regional identity play in alcohol consumption at a broad range of matches, races, courses and competitions. Offering a fresh perspective on the culture and commerce of sporting events, this book will be essential reading for cultural historians, anthropologists and sociologists, and anyone interested in sport.