The Oxford handbook of sports history
Robert Edelman (Editor), Wayne Wilson (Editor)
Orwell was wrong. Sports are not 'war without the shooting', nor are they 'war by other means'. To be sure sports have generated animosity throughout human history, but they also require rules to which the participants agree to abide before the contest. Among other things, those rules are supposed to limit violence, even death. More than anything else, sports have been a significant part of a historical 'civilising process. They are the opposite of war. As the historical profession has taken its cultural turn over the last few decades, scholars have turned their attention to this subject once seen as marginal. This volume combines the efforts of sports historians with essays by historians whose careers have been devoted to more traditional topics
Print Book, English, 2020
Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 2020