Since the mid-nineteenth century, the United States has used sport as a vehicle for spreading its influence and extending its power, especially in the Western Hemisphere and around the Pacific Rim, but also in every corner of the rest of the world. Through modern sport in general, and through American pastimes such as baseball, basketball and the American variant of football in particular, the U.S. has sought to Americanize the globe's masses in a long series of both domestic and foreign campaigns. Sport played roles in American programs of cultural, economic, and political expansion. Sport also contributed to American efforts to assimilate immigrant populations. Even in American games such as baseball and football, sport has also served as an agent of resistance to American imperial designs among the nations of the Western hemisphere and the Pacific Rim. As the twenty-first century begins, sport continues to shape American visions of a global empire as well as framing resistance to American imperial designs. Mapping an Empire of American Sport chronicles the dynamic tensions in the role of sport as an element in both the expansion of and the resistance to American power, and in sport's dual role as an instrument for assimilation and adaptation. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

For more than a century, the Olympics have been the modern world's most significant sporting event. Indeed, they deserve much credit for globalizing sport beyond the boundaries of the Anglo-American universe, where it originated, into broader global realms. By the 1930s, the Olympics had become a global mega-event that occupied the attention of the media, the interest of the public and the energies of nation-states. Since then, projected by television, funded by global capital and fattened by the desires of nations to garner international prestige, the Olympics have grown to gargantuan dimensions.

In the course of its epic history, the Olympics have left numerous legacies, from unforgettable feats to monumental stadiums, from shining triumphs to searing tragedies, from the dazzling debuts on the world's stage of new cities and nations to notorious campaigns of national propaganda. The Olympics represent an essential component of modern global history. The Olympic movement itself has, since the 1990s, recognized and sought to shape its numerous legacies with mixed success as this book makes clear. It offers ground-breaking analyses of the power of Olympic legacies, positive and negative, and surveys the subject from Athens in 1896 to Beijing in 2008, and indeed beyond.

This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

A special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport, this collection of provocative essays explores the many faces of sport in America. Drawing upon insights from anthropology, history, philosophy and sociology and with reference throughout to politics and economics, the contributors outline the story of how American sport has contributed to a climate of insularity, exceptionalism and imperialism, from a symbolic rejection of British rule and British sports to the current status of all-American sports such as baseball and basketball in the face of globalization.

In 2008 China plans to use the Olympic Games to remake its national identity in the global marketplace. In so doing China treads the path blazed by the United States. For more than a century the U.S. has used the Olympic Games to construct national identity, create communal memory, and craft patriotic mythology. From opening parades where the American team refuses to dip its flag in order to signal American exceptionalism to the closing ceremonies where the U.S. media trumpet that their team owes its medals not to superior athleticism but to the nation's peerless social and political systems, Olympic Games have served as sites to bolster American nationalism. More than any other nation, the United States has politicized its Olympic participation. In the process a host of myths about American superiority in global encounters has emerged through the Olympics. In memorializing and mythologizing their Olympic teams Americans have revealed the contours of the racial, gender, and class dynamics that animate their peculiar nationhood. These essays explore the history of expressions of American national identity in Olympic arenas. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

A special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport, this collection of provocative essays explores the many faces of sport in America. Drawing upon insights from anthropology, history, philosophy and sociology and with reference throughout to politics and economics, the contributors outline the story of how American sport has contributed to a climate of insularity, exceptionalism and imperialism, from a symbolic rejection of British rule and British sports to the current status of all-American sports such as baseball and basketball in the face of globalization.

The first book to fully chronicle the struggles and triumphs of African American athletes in the Modern Olympic summer games. In the modern Olympic Games, from 1896 through the present, African American athletes have sought to honor themselves, their race, and their nation on the global stage. But even as these incredible athletes have served to promote visions of racial harmony in the supposedly-apolitical Olympic setting, many have also bravely used the games as a means to bring attention to racial disparities in their country and around the world. In Black Mercuries: African American Athletes, Race, and the Modern Olympic Games, David K. Wiggins, Kevin B. Witherspoon, and Mark Dyreson explore in detail the varied experiences of African American athletes, specifically in the summer games. They examine the lives and careers of such luminaries as Jesse Owens, Rafer Johnson, Wilma Rudolph, Florence Griffith-Joyner, Michael Johnson, and Simone Biles, but also many African American Olympians who have garnered relatively little attention and whose names have largely been lost from historical memory. In recounting the stories of these Black Olympians, Black Mercuries makes clear that their superior athletic skills did not always shield them from the racial tropes and insensitivity spewed by fellow athletes, the media, spectators, and many others. Yet, in part because of the struggles they faced, African American Olympians have been extraordinarily important symbolically throughout Olympic history, serving as role models to future Black athletes and often putting their careers on the line to speak out against enduring racial inequality and discriminatory practices in all walks of life.

New Dimensions of Sport in Modern Europe offers new perspectives on European sport history in the ‘long twentieth century’ designed to challenge and deconstruct what might be considered ‘traditional’ or more familiar Euro-centric conceptions and geographies of sport and leisure—especially those deriving from the leading hotbeds of European sport history. This anthology adds to the growing corpus of explorations of sport and leisure in late-modern European history from a variety of countries: France, Spain, Finland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Slovenia. With topics covering several different sports and ranging from sport during empire to mega-events, and sport literature to women’s sport attire, the insights provided by this new body of research demonstrate a greater understanding of the connections between sport and society in Europe throughout the long twentieth century. This book was originally published as a special issue of The International Journal of the History of Sport.

Statues of fans as nostalgic monuments to the North American devotion to baseball, Canadian lacrosse and ethnic ideologies, the rise of modern sports and class sensibilities in Sao Paulo, the inaugural world championship for women's hockey, and national memories of Olympic Games hosted on US soil. What do these seemingly disparate themes have in common? They each comprise a facet of sporting experiences in the western hemisphere that took place between the 1890s and the 1990s. This collection offers new insights on the role of sport in defining local, regional, national, and international cultures in the western hemisphere. The essays offer historical perspectives on the power of sport to create common ground in modern societies while simultaneously exploring how it serves to mark cultural boundaries and reinforce cultural identities. From national pastimes to ethnic traditions, from class sensibilities to racial ideologies, Sport in the Americas presents novel contributions that examine both the singular and manifold patterns of culture that sport animates. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue in The International Journal of the History of Sport.

Olympic Aspirations: Realised and Unrealised surveys more than a century of the Olympic Movement's promotion of Olympic ideals internationally. The idea for Olympic Aspirations emerged at the world-renowned annual Beijing Academic Forum just months after the city hosted the impressive 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. One section of the Forum was devoted to the impact of the Olympic Movement on China and on China's image in the world. The tone at times was too self-congratulatory for some present. The critical discussion that continued into late 2010 inspired this book. Olympic Aspirations is a companion volume to the well-received Olympic Legacies: Intended and Unintended and draws on expertise from academics in all parts of the world. Both volumes have a similar purpose: to record Olympic ideals achieved but more importantly, to stimulate reflection on those as yet unachieved. Both are constructive in approach, positive in tone and optimistic in attitude. Olympic Aspirations offers original and insightful arguments that address the actions the Olympic Movement has taken to improve the Games. It argues that these actions are as yet incomplete. In concert with Olympic Legacies, it presents two sides of the same coin minted to advance the purity of the Olympic 'coinage'. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

Many Americans know more about the stadiums that loom over their cityscapes or college campuses than they do about any other aspect of the nation's geography. Stadiums serve as iconic monuments of urban and university identities. Indeed, the power of sport in modern American culture has produced 'sportscapes'-landscapes literally shaped by their devotion to athletic competition. Curiously, given the importance of the secular cathedrals in American culture, historians have paid little attention to these edifices. The Rise of Stadiums in the Modern United States: Cathedrals of Sport seeks to remedy that oversight. This book will analyze stadiums from a variety of perspectives, paying special attention to the links between the 'built environment' in which Americans watch and play games and the larger social environments that the nation's sporting practices inhabit. The Rise of Stadiums in the Modern United States: Cathedrals of Sport explores the role of stadiums in shaping urban identities, determining the economics of intercollegiate athletics, influencing local and national politics. This book was previously published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

Olympic Aspirations: Realised and Unrealised surveys more than a century of the Olympic Movement's promotion of Olympic ideals internationally. The idea for Olympic Aspirations emerged at the world-renowned annual Beijing Academic Forum just months after the city hosted the impressive 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. One section of the Forum was devoted to the impact of the Olympic Movement on China and on China's image in the world. The tone at times was too self-congratulatory for some present. The critical discussion that continued into late 2010 inspired this book. Olympic Aspirations is a companion volume to the well-received Olympic Legacies: Intended and Unintended and draws on expertise from academics in all parts of the world. Both volumes have a similar purpose: to record Olympic ideals achieved but more importantly, to stimulate reflection on those as yet unachieved. Both are constructive in approach, positive in tone and optimistic in attitude. Olympic Aspirations offers original and insightful arguments that address the actions the Olympic Movement has taken to improve the Games. It argues that these actions are as yet incomplete. In concert with Olympic Legacies, it presents two sides of the same coin minted to advance the purity of the Olympic 'coinage'. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

Many Americans know more about the stadiums that loom over their cityscapes or college campuses than they do about any other aspect of the nation's geography. Stadiums serve as iconic monuments of urban and university identities. Indeed, the power of sport in modern American culture has produced ?sportscapes landscapes literally shaped by their devotion to athletic competition. Curiously, given the importance of the secular cathedrals in American culture, historians have paid little attention to these edifices. The Rise of Stadiums in the Modern United States: Cathedrals of Sport seeks to remedy that oversight. This book will analyze stadiums from a variety of perspectives, paying special attention to the links between the ?built environment? in which Americans watch and play games and the larger social environments that the nation's sporting practices inhabit. The Rise of Stadiums in the Modern United States: Cathedrals of Sport explores the role of stadiums in shaping urban identities, determining the economics of intercollegiate athletics, influencing local and national politics.

This book was previously published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

New Dimensions of Sport in Modern Europe offers new perspectives on European sport history in the 'long twentieth century' designed to challenge and deconstruct what might be considered 'traditional' or more familiar Euro-centric conceptions and geographies of sport and leisure-especially those deriving from the leading hotbeds of European sport history. This anthology adds to the growing corpus of explorations of sport and leisure in late-modern European history from a variety of countries: France, Spain, Finland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Slovenia. With topics covering several different sports and ranging from sport during empire to mega-events, and sport literature to women's sport attire, the insights provided by this new body of research demonstrate a greater understanding of the connections between sport and society in Europe throughout the long twentieth century. This book was originally published as a special issue of The International Journal of the History of Sport.

In 2016, the Super Bowl, the climactic spectacle of American professional football, celebrated its 50th anniversary. The Super Bowl stands as the broadest 'shared experience' in American culture. As television ratings, cultural practices, and scholarly tomes reveal, more people participate in watching the Super Bowl than in any other common endeavour in the United States. The Super Bowl has become a new national holiday dedicated to the celebration of consumption-the driving force underneath modern culture. Beyond the borders of the United States, the Super Bowl does not rank as highly as a global phenomenon, though it increasingly draws larger audiences in a few nations around the globe. Some watch as curious students of American habits, others seem to be developing affinity for American-style football. The global dynamics of the consumption of football reveal much about the dynamics of American 'soft power' and cultural influence in the new globalized social networks that are emerging as consumption increasingly powers not only the United States but also the world economy. A Half Century of Super Bowls: National and Global Perspectives on America's Grandest Spectacle analyzes the Super Bowl in shaping American and global communities and identities. It was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

When the colonies that became the USA were still dominions of the British Empire they began to imagine their sporting pastimes as finer recreations than even those enjoyed in the motherland. From the war of independence and the creation of the republic to the twenty-first century, sporting pastimes have served as essential ingredients in forging nationhood in American history. This collection gathers the work of an all-star team of historians of American sport in order to explore the origins and meanings of the idea of national pastimes-of a nation symbolized by its sports. These wide-ranging essays analyze the claims of particular sports to national pastime status, from horse racing, hunting, and prize fighting in early American history to baseball, basketball, and football more than two centuries later. These essays also investigate the legal, political, economic, and culture patterns and the gender, ethnic, racial, and class dynamics of national pastimes, connecting sport to broader historical themes. American National Pastimes chronicles how and why the USA has used sport to define and debate the contours of nation. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

In 2016, the Super Bowl, the climactic spectacle of American professional football, celebrated its 50th anniversary. The Super Bowl stands as the broadest 'shared experience' in American culture. As television ratings, cultural practices, and scholarly tomes reveal, more people participate in watching the Super Bowl than in any other common endeavour in the United States. The Super Bowl has become a new national holiday dedicated to the celebration of consumption-the driving force underneath modern culture. Beyond the borders of the United States, the Super Bowl does not rank as highly as a global phenomenon, though it increasingly draws larger audiences in a few nations around the globe. Some watch as curious students of American habits, others seem to be developing affinity for American-style football. The global dynamics of the consumption of football reveal much about the dynamics of American 'soft power' and cultural influence in the new globalized social networks that are emerging as consumption increasingly powers not only the United States but also the world economy. A Half Century of Super Bowls: National and Global Perspectives on America's Grandest Spectacle analyzes the Super Bowl in shaping American and global communities and identities. It was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

Since the mid-nineteenth century, the United States has used sport as a vehicle for spreading its influence and extending its power, especially in the Western Hemisphere and around the Pacific Rim, but also in every corner of the rest of the world. Through modern sport in general, and through American pastimes such as baseball, basketball and the American variant of football in particular, the U.S. has sought to Americanize the globe's masses in a long series of both domestic and foreign campaigns. Sport played roles in American programs of cultural, economic, and political expansion. Sport also contributed to American efforts to assimilate immigrant populations. Even in American games such as baseball and football, sport has also served as an agent of resistance to American imperial designs among the nations of the Western hemisphere and the Pacific Rim. As the twenty-first century begins, sport continues to shape American visions of a global empire as well as framing resistance to American imperial designs. Mapping an Empire of American Sport chronicles the dynamic tensions in the role of sport as an element in both the expansion of and the resistance to American power, and in sport's dual role as an instrument for assimilation and adaptation. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

In 2008 China plans to use the Olympic Games to remake its national identity in the global marketplace. In so doing China treads the path blazed by the United States. For more than a century the U.S. has used the Olympic Games to construct national identity, create communal memory, and craft patriotic mythology. From opening parades where the American team refuses to dip its flag in order to signal American exceptionalism to the closing ceremonies where the U.S. media trumpet that their team owes its medals not to superior athleticism but to the nation's peerless social and political systems, Olympic Games have served as sites to bolster American nationalism. More than any other nation, the United States has politicized its Olympic participation. In the process a host of myths about American superiority in global encounters has emerged through the Olympics. In memorializing and mythologizing their Olympic teams Americans have revealed the contours of the racial, gender, and class dynamics that animate their peculiar nationhood. These essays explore the history of expressions of American national identity in Olympic arenas. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

When the colonies that became the USA were still dominions of the British Empire they began to imagine their sporting pastimes as finer recreations than even those enjoyed in the motherland. From the war of independence and the creation of the republic to the twenty-first century, sporting pastimes have served as essential ingredients in forging nationhood in American history. This collection gathers the work of an all-star team of historians of American sport in order to explore the origins and meanings of the idea of national pastimes-of a nation symbolized by its sports. These wide-ranging essays analyze the claims of particular sports to national pastime status, from horse racing, hunting, and prize fighting in early American history to baseball, basketball, and football more than two centuries later. These essays also investigate the legal, political, economic, and culture patterns and the gender, ethnic, racial, and class dynamics of national pastimes, connecting sport to broader historical themes. American National Pastimes chronicles how and why the USA has used sport to define and debate the contours of nation. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

For more than a century, the Olympics have been the modern world's most significant sporting event. Indeed, they deserve much credit for globalizing sport beyond the boundaries of the Anglo-American universe, where it originated, into broader global realms. By the 1930s, the Olympics had become a global mega-event that occupied the attention of the media, the interest of the public and the energies of nation-states. Since then, projected by television, funded by global capital and fattened by the desires of nations to garner international prestige, the Olympics have grown to gargantuan dimensions. In the course of its epic history, the Olympics have left numerous legacies, from unforgettable feats to monumental stadiums, from shining triumphs to searing tragedies, from the dazzling debuts on the world's stage of new cities and nations to notorious campaigns of national propaganda. The Olympics represent an essential component of modern global history. The Olympic movement itself has, since the 1990s, recognized and sought to shape its numerous legacies with mixed success as this book makes clear. It offers ground-breaking analyses of the power of Olympic legacies, positive and negative, and surveys the subject from Athens in 1896 to Beijing in 2008, and indeed beyond. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

Statues of fans as nostalgic monuments to the North American devotion to baseball, Canadian lacrosse and ethnic ideologies, the rise of modern sports and class sensibilities in Sao Paulo, the inaugural world championship for women's hockey, and national memories of Olympic Games hosted on US soil. What do these seemingly disparate themes have in common? They each comprise a facet of sporting experiences in the western hemisphere that took place between the 1890s and the 1990s. This collection offers new insights on the role of sport in defining local, regional, national, and international cultures in the western hemisphere. The essays offer historical perspectives on the power of sport to create common ground in modern societies while simultaneously exploring how it serves to mark cultural boundaries and reinforce cultural identities. From national pastimes to ethnic traditions, from class sensibilities to racial ideologies, Sport in the Americas presents novel contributions that examine both the singular and manifold patterns of culture that sport animates. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue in The International Journal of the History of Sport.

A Cultural History of Sport in the Renaissance covers the period 1450 to 1650. Outwardly, Renaissance sports resembled their medieval forebears, but the incorporation of athletics into the educational curriculum signalled a change. As part of the scientific revolution, sport now became the object of intellectual analysis. Numerous books were written on the medical benefits of sport and on the best way to joust, fence, train horses and ride, play ball games, swim, practice archery, wrestle, or become an acrobat. Sport became the visible sign of the mind's control over the physical body, such control often becoming an end in itself with some sports shaped more by decorum than exercise. The 6 volume set of the Cultural History of Sport presents the first comprehensive history from classical antiquity to today, covering all forms and aspects of sport and its ever-changing social, cultural, political, and economic context and impact. The themes covered in each volume are the purpose of sport; sporting time and sporting space; products, training and technology; rules and order; conflict and accommodation; inclusion, exclusion and segregation; minds, bodies and identities; representation. Alessandro Arcangeli is Associate Professor at the University of Verona, Italy. Volume 3 in the Cultural History of Sport set General Editors: Wray Vamplew, Mark Dyreson, and John McClelland

A Cultural History of Sport in the Age of Enlightenment covers the period 1650 to 1800, a period often seen as a time of decline in sporting practice and literature. In fact, a rich sporting culture existed and sports were practised by both men and women at all levels of society. The Enlightenment called into question many of the earlier notions of religion, gender, and rank which had previously shaped sporting activities and also initiated the commercialization, professionalization and associativity which were to define modern sport. The 6 volume set of the Cultural History of Sport presents the first comprehensive history from classical antiquity to today, covering all forms and aspects of sport and its ever-changing social, cultural, political, and economic context and impact. The themes covered in each volume are the purpose of sport; sporting time and sporting space; products, training and technology; rules and order; conflict and accommodation; inclusion, exclusion and segregation; minds, bodies and identities; representation. Rebekka von Mallinckrodt is Professor at the University of Bremen, Germany. Volume 4 in the Cultural History of Sport set General Editors: Wray Vamplew, Mark Dyreson, and John McClelland

A Cultural History of Sport in the Age of Industry covers the period 1800 to 1920. Over this period, sport become increasingly global, some sports were radically altered, sports clubs proliferated, and new team games - such as baseball, basketball and the various forms of football - were created, codified, commercialized, and professionalized. Yet this was also an age of cultural and political tensions, when issues around the role of women, social class, ethnicity and race, imperial relationships, nation-building, and amateur and professional approaches were all shaping sport. At the same time, increasing urbanization, population, real wages and leisure time drove demand for sport ever higher, and the institutionalization and regulation of sport accelerated. The 6 volume set of the Cultural History of Sport presents the first comprehensive history from classical antiquity to today, covering all forms and aspects of sport and its ever-changing social, cultural, political, and economic context and impact. The themes covered in each volume are the purpose of sport; sporting time and sporting space; products, training and technology; rules and order; conflict and accommodation; inclusion, exclusion and segregation; minds, bodies and identities; representation. Mike Huggins is Emeritus Professor at the University of Cumbria, UK. Volume 5 in the Cultural History of Sport set General Editors: Wray Vamplew, Mark Dyreson, and John McClelland

A Cultural History of Sport in the Medieval Age covers the period 600 to 1450. Lacking any viable ancient models, sport evolved into two distinct forms, divided by class. Male and female aristocrats hunted and knights engaged in jousting and tournaments, transforming increasingly outdated modes of warfare into brilliant spectacle. Meanwhile, simpler sports provided recreational distraction from the dangerously unsettled conditions of everyday life. Running, jumping, wrestling, and many ball games - soccer, cricket, baseball, golf, and tennis - had their often violent beginnings in this period. The 6 volume set of the Cultural History of Sport presents the first comprehensive history from classical antiquity to today, covering all forms and aspects of sport and its ever-changing social, cultural, political, and economic context and impact. The themes covered in each volume are the purpose of sport; sporting time and sporting space; products, training and technology; rules and order; conflict and accommodation; inclusion, exclusion and segregation; minds, bodies and identities; representation. Noel Fallows is Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Georgia, USA. Volume 2 in the Cultural History of Sport set General Editors: Wray Vamplew, Mark Dyreson, and John McClelland