Books in the Global Culture and Sport Series series

Based on original Stasi and Communist Party archival sources, this book uncovers why East Germany was for two decades running one of the most successful nations in the Summer and Winter Olympics, exploring how the central elite sports system was beset by internal tensions and disputes.

In 1995 rugby union finally became a professional sport following more than a century as an amateur game. This book offers a critical analysis of the sport in the professional era and assesses the relationship between the local and the global in contemporary rugby union.

By participating in the everyday life of fitness professionals, gym-goers and bodybuilders, The Global Gym explores fitness centres as sites of learning. The authors consider how physical, psychological and cultural knowledge about health and the body is incorporated into people's identity in a local and global gym and fitness context.

This edited volume addresses key debates around African football, identity construction, fan cultures, and both African and global media narratives. Using the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa as a lens, it explores how football in Africa is intimately bound up with deeper social, cultural and political currents.

This book provides a critical approach to sport-for-development, acknowledging the potential of this growing field but emphasising challenges, problems and limitations - particularly if programs are not adequately planned, delivered or monitored.

This book examines the environmental credentials of Olympic Host cities and the opportunities afforded by hosting the Games towards the ecological modernization of the host nation by using perspectives offered by environmental sociology. It also sets out projections for the environmental legacy of London 2012.

This book investigates the use of football to create, shape and promote Spanish, Catalan and Basque national identities and explores the utilization of soccer to foster patriotic feelings, exposing the often dark vested interests behind the propagation of national narratives through soccer.

This book evaluates the moral project of Olympism, analzying the changing value positions adopted in relation to the ideology of Olympism across the period from the 1890s to the present day. The book also analyzes discourses of Olympism concerned with youth, governance, sport for development and international relations.

This book explores the relationship between diplomatic discourse and the Olympic Movement, charting its continuity and change from an historical perspective.

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This book explores the significance of sport in the understanding of past and current societal dynamics in the Arab world. It examines sport in relation to cultural, political and economic changes in the Arab World, including nation-state building, the formation of national identity and international relations in post-colonial context.

This book provides the first in-depth analysis of the global phenomenon of snowboarding culture. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, it offers key insights into the sport, lifestyle, industry, media, gender relations, travel, and physical experience of snowboarding, in both historical and contemporary contexts.

Investigating the capacity of sport to act both as a conduit for traditional development assistance activities and as an agent for change in its own right, this book argues that sport can contribute to the development process, particularly where traditional development approaches have difficulty in engaging with communities.

This book reimagines the pleasures of sports and provides a critical perspective from the Global South. Analysing the spread of sports markets in Sri Lanka along with a range of struggles, the book highlights how the celebration of 'sportive nationalism,' promoting sports markets in the Global South reinforces patriarchal ethno-nationalist authoritarian sports cultures.By explaining how the realm of social reproduction involving households and communities is integral for play and sports, the book challenges the market-driven 'sports and development' agenda while arguing for a 'sports commons.' By foregrounding issues of justice and care, the book highlights how struggles for recognition, redistribution and representation are central to reimagining sports within an alternative notion of work, play and resistance.

This book examines historically how cricket was codified out of its variant folk-forms and then marketed with certain lessons sought to reinforce the values of a declining landed interest.

The themes of nationhood, geography, citizenship, acculturation, identity, globalization, narrative and mythology reverberate throughout this book, especially with regard to how they shape place, identity, and culture.

This volume is built around three assumptions - first, that for huge numbers people around the world, including many sport lovers, there are more important things in life than sport; and, third, that contrary to the still-popular belief that sport and politics don't mix, sport often provides an ideal theatre for the enacting of political protest.

Young, white men have dominated action sports for many years, yet women have refused to accept positions on the margins of these unique sporting cultures.

This book examines historically how cricket was codified out of its variant folk-forms and then marketed with certain lessons sought to reinforce the values of a declining landed interest.

This book examines how women athletes were represented in international media coverage during the 2004 Olympic Games. Through feminist theorizing and qualitative textual analysis, the contributors discuss sexualization, nationalism, success, failure and the [in]visibility of women athletes in newspaper reporting in Asia, Europe and the USA.

This book reimagines the pleasures of sports and provides a critical perspective from the Global South. Analysing the spread of sports markets in Sri Lanka along with a range of struggles, the book highlights how the celebration of ¿sportive nationalism,¿ promoting sports markets in the Global South reinforces patriarchal ethno-nationalist authoritarian sports cultures.By explaining how the realm of social reproduction involving households and communities is integral for play and sports, the book challenges the market-driven ¿sports and development¿ agenda while arguing for a ¿sports commons.¿ By foregrounding issues of justice and care, the book highlights how struggles for recognition, redistribution and representation are central to reimagining sports within an alternative notion of work, play and resistance.

This book captures the contested terrain of contemporary masculinity and explores a range of conceptualisations, with a specific focus on the role of the media and promotional culture within the context of sport.

The themes of nationhood, geography, citizenship, acculturation, identity, globalization, narrative and mythology reverberate throughout this book, especially with regard to how they shape place, identity, and culture.

This volume offers a wide-reaching overview of current academic research on women's participation in combat sports within a range of different national and trans-national contexts, detailing many of the struggles and opportunities experienced by women at various levels of engagement within sports such as boxing, wrestling, and mixed martial arts.

Young, white men have dominated action sports for many years, yet women have refused to accept positions on the margins of these unique sporting cultures.

Analysing the politics of the 2012 London Olympics, Stephen Wagg examines the framing of London's bid to host the Games, arguments about the Games' likely impact and the establishment of 'Fortress London' to protect the Games. The book asks who won, and who lost out, in this important event as well as exploring its media coverage and legacy.

This volume is built around three assumptions - first, that for huge numbers people around the world, including many sport lovers, there are more important things in life than sport; and, third, that contrary to the still-popular belief that sport and politics don't mix, sport often provides an ideal theatre for the enacting of political protest.