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Historiography on the intersection of sport and politics is a vast field within which six major areas can be identified. 1. German, Italian and — to a lesser extent — Japanese historians have written extensively about the role of sports under fascist regimes. 2. There have also been numerous efforts to analyse the role of sport in communist societies (as well as considerable attention to `workers' sports' in the 1920s and 1930s). 3. Many historians have dealt with sport and the politics of race and ethnicity (especially, but not exclusively, in South Africa, the USA, Australia and Ireland). 4. European and American historians have also written extensively and with considerable passion about the politics of gender discrimination. 5. The Olympic Games, which their founder intended to be a political force, have been a fifth focus of historical scrutiny. 6. A small but prolific group of French and German neo-Marxist historians and sociologists have argued that modern sports are a mirror image of capitalist institutions and are, therefore, inherently repressive. These are all areas of intense and intensive historical attention.

Aux Etats-unis, l'histoire du sportif noir est generalement presentee sous la forme d'un recit en trois parties : l'exclusion, la lutte et l'integration. Apres une longue periode de discrimination au cours de laquelle les Afro-Americains furent plus ou moins exclus des sports amateurs et professionnels, un temps de protestation est venu, bref mais intense, qui n'a pas abouti a une simple integration raciale mais a une surrepresentation des sportifs noirs dans la pratique du base-ball, du bask...

Guttmann Allen. The road all runners run. La route de tous les coureurs. In: Les Cahiers de l'INSEP, n°46, 2010. Histoire(s) de la performance du sportif de haut niveau. pp. 173-178.

Sport has always been a legitimate focus for human energy, and in the last fifteen years it has emerged as a legitimate focus for scholarly energy as well. In this interdisciplinary overview of the study of sport, sociology, intellectual history, psychology, anthropology, and literature are brought to bear in seeking new understanding of the role and significance of sport in society. Some of the conclusions will be controversial or even disturbing, and the breadth of the volume clearly demonstrates that sport history is not merely a hobby. As Jack W. Berryman notes in the introduction to the volume: Each essay, in some distinctive manner, confronts the problem of general preconceptions and misconceptions in the study of sport history. The authors ask fundamental questions: what is sport, what is its significance over time, and how can sport be studied effectively? Donald G. Kyle opens the questions with an examination of the myth of the decline of ancient Greek sport. Stephen Hardy proposes a new model for the interpretation of both early and modern sport. Steven A. Riess questions the historicity of the myth of social mobility through sport in America. Richard D. Mandell explains the history of theoretically profound and earnest modern criticism of sport. Allen Guttmann demythologizes the relationship between erotic impulses and sport. This serious and timely study of sport aids in the reevaluation of many popular beliefs and traditional scholarly interpretations concerning sport in various ages and cultures. It offers much of value to all those interested in contemplating the nature and history of the phenomenon of sport.

From 1952 to 1988, from the games held at Helsinki to those just completed in Seoul, one of the most dramatic aspects of the modern Olympics has been the sports rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. Propagandists on both sides of the Iron Curtain have presented the competition between Russian and American athletes as a portentous symbolic struggle between two ideological systems. As the games have become increasingly important in the political sphere, the success or failure of the Olympic team, as measured in the unofficial medal counts, has often overshadowed the performances of the men and women who actually ran, jumped, threw, wrestled, rode, and otherwise displayed their physical skills. President Carter's 1980 decision to use an Olympic boycott as a diplomatic weapon ended, or ought to have ended, the naive notion that the games might somehow be insulated from the international power struggle. The Soviet Union's 1984 reprisal should not have surprised anyone.

Dissatisfaction with American policy in Vietnam has increased from early criticism by the Left to the point where nearly two-thirds of the people have expressed their disap proval. This dissent is undoubtedly one factor in President Johnson's decision not to seek re-election. Protest by the Right is based on the conviction that the Johnson administra tion has refused to seek "victory" in Vietnam. Protest from the Center and Left is more complicated. A useful, if some what arbitrary, categorization divides the arguments into two groups: those based on conceptions of national interest and those based on the alleged illegality and/or immorality of American actions. Within the first group, protestors have argued either that the war in Vietnam is not worth its costs in men and material or that it is simply unwinnable. Within the second group, there is a division between the many who are horrified by the means used by the Armed Forces and the few who reject the administration's ends (that is, a non-Commu nist South Vietnam). Within the smaller group is a still smal ler segment of the population ideologically committed to com munism. Finally, protest of all kinds must be seen within the context of a widespread dissatisfaction with American society, above and beyond the specific ills resulting from the present war.

Sports in America, particularly big-time collegiate and professional sports, have never been more popular. Modern sports events bring us breathtaking demonstrations of grace and power and provide the focal point for the leisure time of hundreds of thousands of Americans. But the world of sports is also increasingly a scene of moral corruption and physical abuse. In A Whole New Ball Game , Allen Guttmann examines the American fascination with sport and what that fascination reveals about our culture. Like the transformation of American society in the twentieth century, the modernization of American sports has seemed inevitable and ubiquitous. As Guttmann shows, American sports reflect American culture: our sports are secular, bureaucratic, and specialized, and as part of our democratic society, they require at least in theory an equality among competitors. The rules of modern sports reflect their evolution from earlier, less differentiated games. To master the skills required by modern sports, athletes train scientifically, employing the most technologically advanced equipment. And, like almost every other aspect of our lives, sports are quantified: our athletes and the media are almost obsessed with records. In tracing the development of modern sports in America from the rituals of pre-Columbian cultures to the late-1980s in this book, Guttmann discusses the failure of colonial New England and the antebellum South to influence the evolution of sports. He shows how baseball, a sport that combines premodern and modern characteristics, performed important social functions, helping to Americanize generations of immigrants. Examining basketball as the archetypal modern sport, Guttmann discusses its invention in the YMCA and its vulnerablity to corruption by gamblers, and he provocatively reviews the transformation of informal chlidren's play into adult-sponsored leagues. One chapter of this important study offers and engrossing account of the female athletes's transition from social outcast to superstar; another scrutinizes the failure to achieve racial equality in sports. Guttmann also presents a scathing analysis of the destruction of the athlete's body through drug use and an examination of the search for alternative forms of physical activity. A Whole New Ball Game demonstrates conclusively that sports are an integral part of modern society and that, taken as a whole, they may be the best indicators we have of who we are as a people.