Sport, Power and Culture: A Social and Historical Analysis of Popular Sports in Britain - Softcover

"... raises serious and urgent questions about the relationship between sport and the configurations of power in contemporary British society and represents an overdue and welcome intervention in the field." Stuart Hall "... richly detailed with masses of examples of what sport is and has been in our past." City Limits

This book provides the first systematic analysis of the links between sport and power in Britain. Beginning with the development of popular sports during the Industrial Revolution, the author traces the changing relations between sport and social power up to the present day. He gives particular attention to the ways in which sporting activities of different kinds relate to divisions of class, sex and race. In so doing he analyses the significance of sport as a means of exercising power on the body, situating this analysis in the context of a general discussion of the role of sport in education and modern consumer culture.