Historians and the History of Sport

Abstract

This chapter offers a new and extensive analysis of the role of the historical profession in the writing of sports history in Britain, France and the United States with additional reference to Germany, Italy and Australia. The aim is to show in depth how the form and content of the various approaches taken by historians from the 1960s to the present compares to those trained in the social sciences and in physical education. The chapter has three parts: it looks first at the differing national traditions of historical writing on sport by historians; then it examines their relationship to that of sociologists, anthropologists and physical educators; finally, these differing disciplinary perspectives are critically examined in detail through concrete examples drawn from both traditional and modern sports in Britain, Europe and beyond.