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How we say what we say is a part of what we say. In this sense, the form and the content of a statement are inseparable. Style matters semiotically as well as aesthetically. These three assertions are supported by a series of examples from a wide range of verbal and non-verbal sports-historical texts. In accordance with the post-modernist emphasis on reflexivity, several of my examples are taken from my own efforts to ‘do’ history.

For decades there was been a debate, especially about German Scholars, over the discipline of sports studies. Is it indeed a discipline or merely the intersection of history, sociology, and a number of other established disciplinees? Assuming the latter, it behooves everyone engaged in sports history to take seriously not only popular culture's representations of sports but also ‘‘high cultural’’ interpretations by writers and artists. Ernest Himingway's The Sun Aso Rises and a series of ten visual images can exemplify some of the ways that historians can profitably draw upon literary and artistic materials – as Hans Ulrich Gumbricht has done in his study of aesthetics and sports spectatorship: In Praise of Athletic Beauty.

Over a period of approximately 30 years, from the 1880s to the 1910s, American ‘gridiron’ football evolved from the British sport of rugby football. In the course of this evolution, American football became increasingly rationalized, largely as the result of innovations suggested by Walter Camp. Most of the innovations reduced the game's extremely high level of expressive interpersonal physical violence. In this sense, the game has been another instance of Norbert Elias's ‘civilizing process’. In recent years, however, partly as a result of licit and illicit drugs, the level of violence has risen. In all likelihood, it will continue to rise.

Since the late nineteenth century, if not earlier, physical educators and addled journalists have made regular claims about the democratising effects of sports participation on the participants the...

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.

(2002). From Iran to All of Asia: The Origin and Diffusion of Polo. The International Journal of the History of Sport: Vol. 19, No. 2-3, pp. 384-400.

Creak asserts that ‘physical culture, particularly sport, is among the most important means of substantializing notions of the body, masculinity, and the nation in modern societies’ (12). Creak’s h...

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.

In response to the recent collection of articles on sports diffusion, some generalizations are in order. While a number of factors determine the processes of ludic diffusion, the most important of them is the relative political, economic, and culture power of the nations involved. The power vectors are usually, but not always, aligned. Cultural imperialism is a useful term to apply to these processes if one remembers that politically and economically dominated nations sometimes influence the sports of dominant nations. Modernization is on the whole a more precise term than Americanization to describe these processes. Traditional sports are certain to survive into the next century, but their formal-structural characteristics are likely to undergo changes that make them increasingly modem.

Sport wird allgemein als Ausdrucksmittel von Mannlichkeit angesehen.1 R.W. Connell vertritt in seinen beiden oft zitierten Buchern die These, das „Mannersportarten“ eine sogenannte „hegemoniale Maskulinitat“ transportieren (1987, 1995). In Connells eigenen Worten beinhaltet „hegemoniale Maskulinitat“ „die Aufrechterhaltung von Praktiken, die die Dominanz von Mannern uber Frauen institutionalisiert“ (1987: 185). Connells Formulierung hatte einen auserordentlichen Einflus, und Verweise auf die „hegemoniale Maskulinitat“ sind inzwischen ein Gemeinplatz im Diskurs der feministischen Sportsoziologie. In der Art, wie der Begriff von feministischen Sportsoziologen und -soziologinnen verwandt wird, lenkt er die Aufmerksamkeit auf die Demonstration physischen Konnens durch die Manner, auf die physische Dominanz uber andere Manner und auf ihre verbale Verunglimpfung von Frauen and Homosexuellen. Demnach sind „mannliche“ Sportler in ihrem zwanghaften Streben nach physischer Dominanz allgemein aggressiv und oftmals gewalttatig. Sie sind nicht nur gedankenlos bereit, anderen Leid zuzufugen, sondern nehmen auch eigene Verletzungen in Kauf. Ihre masochistische Haltung gegenuber ihren eigenen Korpern kann zusammengefast werden in dem zweideutigen Ausdruck „verletzt spielen“. Fruher bedeutete dies, Verletzungen vorzutauschen; heute geht es darum, weiterzuspielen, auch nachdem jemand sich verletzt hat.

The history of Greek athletics has become such a specialized field that the discovery of a hitherto unknown terra‐cotta statuette, black‐figured vase, or ten‐word inscription can occasion a lengthy...