This book celebrates the life and career of Eric Dunning. Eric Dunning was a pioneer of the sociology of sport, firstly known for his ground-breaking theoretical work with Norbert Elias, and his study of the development of football. Subsequently he published seminal work on amateurism, professionalism and the development of rugby (with Kenneth Sheard) and on football hooliganism (with Patrick Murphy and John Williams) and became a focal point for figurational sociological work on sport. Such was the scope of his thinking and the force of his personality that he bestrode the sociology of sport from its inception and initial organisational formation to his retirement. This book charts the breadth and depth of Eric Dunning’s influence through a series of chapters written by friends, colleagues and others who have worked with his ideas. Chapters provide an overview of his thinking, reflect on his own core research, and describe the departures this inspired across a range of topics embracing politics, sport, health and education, spanning different nations and sporting cultures. This book will be beneficial to students, researchers and professionals with an interest in sport and in the relationship between sport and society. The chapters in this book were originally published in Sport in Society.

A collection of texts providing a useful resource for students in the field of sports studies. Subject headings include approaches to the study of sport, the development and structure of modern sport, sport and power relations, and major issues in contemporary sport.

An international manual is like a world cruise: a once-in-a-lifetime experience. All the more reason to consider carefully whether it is necessary. This can hardly be the case if previous research in the selected field has already been the subject of an earlier review-or even several competing surveys. On the other hand, more thorough study is necessary if the intensity and scope of research are increasing without comprehensive assessments. That was the situation in Western societies when work began on this project in the summer of 1998. It was then, too, that the challenges emerged: any manual, espe cially an international one, is a very special type of text, which is anything but routine. It calls for a special effort: the "state of the art" has to be documented for selected subject areas, and its presentation made as compelling as possible. The editors were delighted, therefore, by the cooperation and commitment shown by the eighty-one contributors from ten countries who were recruited to write on the sixty-two different topics, by the con structive way in which any requests for changes were dealt with, and by the patient re sponse to our many queries. This volume is the result of a long process. It began with the first drafts outlining the structure of the work, which were submitted to various distinguished colleagues. Friedheim Neidhardt of Berlin, Gertrud Nunner-Winkler of Munich, and Roland Eckert of Trier, to name only a few, supplied valuable comments at this stage.

Matters of Sport is a tribute to Eric Dunning, the leading sports sociologist in the English-speaking world. This book addresses Dunning's contributions to the sociological and historical study of sport, covering key topics such as hooliganism, celebrity and gender relations. A broad range of leading academics from Europe and North America reflect on the ways in which Dunning's work has influenced their own research and understanding of sport. This volume was previously published as a special issue of the journal Sport in Society.

The sociology of sports in the Middle East has been neglected compared to other world regions. This volume aspires to encourage a greater focus on this topic. Here are assembled papers that discuss various aspects of this subject. As it happens all deal with football (soccer) largely in Egypt but including other Middle Eastern countries. Some are historically or politically oriented while others take a more sociological approach. Papers deal with the relation between organized sports and fans, with the special place of youngsters and women in sports, or with the role of sports in a more general understanding of culture and society as indicators of modernization and other facets of social change. Sportive competitions arouse keen passions around such issues as gender, class, and nationality, while they raise questions about leadership on and off the field, and about the economic impact of the games. The topic needs more research.

In this tenth celebratory volume, ten recognized and influential sport scholars from around the world reflect on their respective academic journeys within the subfield Sociology of Sport.

The state of Israel is a home for a widely diverse population from many different ethnic, religious, cultural and social backgrounds; a new society with ancient roots, which is still coalescing and developing today. Israeli sport, maybe more than any other cultural phenomenon, has changed radically since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Over the past six decades, Israeli sport has evolved from an amateur hobby of a few ‘sports freaks’, to a passion of the masses. The transformation to a major cultural phenomenon is the result of general developments in Israeli and international society. The aim of the book is to shed light on those processes that shaped the Israeli sport arena. Following the steps of numerous research perspectives, that considers sports as "text" within a socio-historical context, this book deals with the development of Israeli sports in Palestine and, later, the State of Israel as a text (or a narrative) which was contingent on the socio-historical context. In seeking to comprehend these processes, this book is divided into three parts. The Palestine period, the early stage of statehood, and the "matured" period which began in and around the early 1980s. Each period is narrated by the major participants and the major political-economical parameters which, as it is argued, shaped Israeli sport. This book was published as a special issue of the Israeli Affairs.

European National football came together in the summer of 2012 for the 14th occasion. This book sets out to examine the enduring social tensions between supporters and authorities, as well as those between local, national and European identities, which formed the backdrop to the 14th staging of the European National football tournament, Euro2012. The context of the tournament was somewhat unique from those staged in previous years, being jointly hosted for the first time by two post-Communist nations still in the process of social and economic transition. In this respect, the decision to stage Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine bore its own material and symbolic legacies shaping the tournament: the unsettling of neo-liberal imaginings and emergent ‘East-West’ fears about poor infrastructure, inefficiencies and corruption jostled with moral panics about racism and fears surrounding the potentially unfulfilled consumerist expectations of west European supporters. The book seeks to explore the ideologies and practices invoked by competing national sentiments and examine the social tensions, ambiguities and social capital generating potentials surrounding national, ethnic, European identity, with respect to national football teams, supporters and supporter movements. This book was published as a special issue of Soccer and Society.

This book endeavours to bring the sociology of Elias to a new and wider audience through offering accessible explanations of some of his key ideas.

1999 North American Society for the Sociology of Sport Annual Book Award Sport Matters offers a comprehensive introduction to the study of modern sport from a sociological perspective. It covers such topics as the history of sport, the development of ideas of 'fair play', sport and the emotions, the professionalization of sport, race-relations and sport and sport and gender. Unique in its cross-cultural analysis, it uses examples from around the globe, including sports spectator violence in North America, the growth of international soccer and the role of sport in the European identity.