The Balkan Games resulted on the one hand from the growth of modern European sport and the unsatisfactory performances of the Balkan athletes at national and international level, and on the other hand, from a desire to bring the Balkan peoples together in peace and concord. The Games were initiated in Athens in 1929 and increasingly became an integral part of the political, cultural and social life of the area. The common global reality is that when an athletic event is staged, attempted friendship seldom receives priority. In the 1930s, however, the Balkan Games provided a rare example of an international athletic event bringing antagonistic states together in friendship. This consideration of the significance of the Balkan Games as an instrument of political optimism provides clear evidence of the occasional positive influence of sport in politics. The work is a case-study of interest to political and social scientists and to historians of Europe and sport. This book was previously published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

The premise of The Asian Games: Modern Metaphor forThe Middle Kingdom Reborn - Political Statement, Cultural Assertion, Social Symbol is emphatic. The Guangzhou 2010 Asian Games was a metaphor for hegemony and renaissance. China crushed the other Asian nations with the massive weight of its Gold Medalhaul and demonstrated regional self-confidence regained. The huge accumulation of gold medals emphasized that once again China stood apart, and above, other nations of Asia. China's reaction and the reactions of the other Asian nations are explored in The Asian Games. There is another premise in the publication that theChinese Asian Games were a harbinger of a wider dominance to come: geopolitically, politically, militarily, economically and culturally. And there is a further issue raised by the Guangzhou Asian Games- the continuing determination of the Asian nations to mount a distinctive Games that is Asian and resistant to the cumbersome gigantism of the Modern Olympic Games. Asia now has the wealth to promote, present and project a global sports mega-event with an Asian identity and in an Asian idiom. This Collection is unique in focus, argument and evidence.This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

London hosted the Olympic Games for the third time in 2012, a mega-event where the political, economic and social expectations could hardly be compared with the previous London Games of 1908 and 1948. In addition, the Olympic Games went back to Europe in 2012 after a long period where (apart from Athens in 2004) they were held by cities in other continents. In London, the world watched the Games. Continental Europe, however, generated a particular attitude based on the special relations it had developed historically with England. At the crossing point of history, cultural studies and geopolitics, this book provides new insights on the significance of the Olympic Games. It considers that the Games are the right window to look at both the past and the current relations between England and its closest continental neighbours. It will be ideal for students and academics working in sport sciences, cultural history, political science and European studies; amateur and professional sports historians; Olympic followers and experts in Olympic studies. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

Soft Power Politics- Past and Present: Football and Baseball on the Western Pacific Rim illustrates the momentous expanse and moment of sport in the Asia Pacific region and through these essays dealing with two of the most prodigious global team sports confronts various cultural clashes that Samuel Huntington would ensure the end of civilisation. They also demonstrate the power sport has to change the world and to inspire and unite people globally. All who sail under the flag ofSport as ingenuous as it may seem to the host of cynics that abounds, believe that dialogues that emerge from arguments included in this text represent communication of the highest order and have the potential to produce the cohesion that can close some of those cracks that Huntington said would open up along, what he called the fault lines between civilisations.This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

On 6 July 2005, the International Olympic Committee awarded the 2012 summer Olympic Games to the city of London, opening a new chapter in Great Britain’s rich Olympic history. Despite the prospect of hosting the summer Games for the third time since Pierre de Coubertin’s 1894 revival of the Olympic movement, the historical roots of British Olympism have received limited scholarly attention. With the conclusion of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the passing of the baton to London, Rule Britannia remedies that oversight. This book uncovers Britain’s early Olympic involvement, revealing how the British public, media, and leading governmental officials were strongly opposed to international Olympic competition. It explores how the British Olympic Association focused on three main factors in the midst of widespread national opposition: it embraced early Olympian spectacles as a platform for maintaining a sporting union with Ireland, it fostered a greater sense of imperial identity with Britain’s white dominions, and it undertook an ambitious policy of athletic specialization designed to reverse the nation’s waning fortunes in international sport. This book was previously published as a special issue of International Journal of the History of Sport.

Challenges of Modernity offers a broad account of the social and economic history of Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century and asks critical questions about the structure and experience of modernity in different contexts and periods. This volume focuses on central questions such as: How did the various aspects of modernity manifest themselves in the region, and what were their limits? How was the multifaceted transition from a mainly agrarian to an industrial and post-industrial society experienced and perceived by historical subjects? Did Central and Eastern Europe in fact approximate its dream of modernity in the twentieth century despite all the reversals, detours and third-way visions? Structured chronologically and taking a comparative approach, a range of international contributors combine a focus on the overarching problems of the region with a discussion of individual countries and societies, offering the reader a comprehensive, nuanced survey of the social and economic history of this complex region in the recent past. The first in a four-volume set on Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century, it is the go-to resource for those interested in the ‘challenges of modernity‘ faced by this dynamic region.

Danish sport has been associated with Europe and the World; not least through I.P. Muller and Niels Bukh and the Danish Gymnastics revolution with its emphasis on male aesthetics and hygiene in the first half of the twentieth century. At the same time, Denmark has stood apart from Europe in the early moments of its history of sport with the rural revolution of the farming communities as a statement of political independence and assertion. However, during the German occupation of Denmark, Danish sport was part of a European collaboration which characterized a number of the occupied countries not least in the Nordic area. After the Second World War, Denmark embraced international body cultures with other European nations in particular Eastern martial arts. Denmark too, as part of trends in the European region and the world, became caught up in sport as a powerful contemporary political statement. This book was previously published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

Behind the spectacle of entertainment, sport is a subject with political issues at every level. These issues range from the social, with divisions created along gender and class lines, to the use of sport to pursue diplomatic and statecraft goals. In addition, some sports are positioned and promoted as national events both in public opinion and in the media. This book seeks to explore some aspects of the notion of power in sport in south Asia and among south Asians abroad. The first two chapters deal with the internal societal dimensions of the politics of sport; the next three relate to the politics inside the sporting world in the subcontinent and its bridge with the broader arena of the society through the media, while the last five relate to the use of sports in statecraft, consensus building and international politics. This book was based on two special issues of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

Sport and war have been closely linked in Australian and New Zealand society since the nineteenth century. Sport has, variously, been advocated as appropriate training for war, lambasted as a distraction from the war effort, and resorted to as an escape from wartime trials and tribulations. War has limited the fortunes of some sporting codes – and some individuals – while others have blossomed in the changed circumstances. The chapters in this book range widely over the broad subject of Australian and New Zealand sport and their relation to the cataclysmic world wars of the first half of the twentieth century. They examine the mythology of the links between sport and war, sporting codes, groups of sporting individuals, and individual sportspeople. Revealing complex and often unpredictable effects of total wars upon individuals and social groups which as always, created chaos, and the sporting field offered no exception. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

From turn-of-the-century horseracing to the monolithic anti-doping attitudes now supported by sporting organizations, the development of anti-doping ideology has spread throughout modern sport. Yet heretofore few historians have explored the many ways that international sport has responded to doping. This book seeks to fill that gap by examining different aspects of sport’s global efforts to respond to athletes doping. By incorporating cultural, political, and feminist histories that examine international responses to doping, this special issue aims to better articulate the narrative of doping. The work starts with the first mention of doping in any sport. It examines not only the first efforts to ban doping but also the athletes who sought performance enhancers. Focusing on specific framing events, authors in this issue examine how history of doping and how it has indelibly marked the sporting landscape. The result is a work with both breadth and focus. From stories of Japanese swimmers to Italian runners to American jockeys, the work spans the range of doping history. At the same time, the authors remain focused around one single issue: the history of doping in sport. This bookw as published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.