Sport and the British: A Modern History (Oxford Studies in Social History) - Hardcover

Holt, Richard

3.78

23 ratings by Goodreads

9780198225867: Sport and the British: A Modern History (Oxford Studies in Social History)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198225865 ISBN 13: 9780198225867

Publisher: Clarendon Press, 1989

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Richard Holt has written a history of British sport since 1800 in which he attempts to explain how sport has changed and what it has meant to ordinary people. He argues that the way we play reflects not just our lives as citizens of a predominantly urban and industrial world, but also what is unique about British sport. How and why were the British unique in their sports? Holt tries to show that the British were innovators in abandoning traditional, often brutal, sports and in establishing a code of "fair play", which spread throughout the late Victorian Empire. He suggests that they were also pioneers in popular sports and in the promotion of organized commercial spectator events, with the accompanying rise of professionalism. The author also discusses modern media coverage of sport, gambling, violence and attitudes towards it, nationalism and the role of sport in sustaining male identity.

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Review:

Rightly lauded in hardback a year ago, this affordable paperback edition places sport within the context not just of British history but of the people's history. (Independent)

this is an outstanding history of sport's social role in nineteenth and twentieth-century Britain ... everyone can learn from Holt's approach to sports history (Economic History Review)

an ideal introductory text ... The range and richness of the subjects are inviting to historians, and Holt supplies us with an indispensable vade-mecum. (English Historical Review)

Book Description:

`Magnificent'The Times

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