The Routledge series of guidebooks aims to offer “an overview of the fundamental principles of a subject area in a jargon free and undaunting format” (front matter). Sport History: The Basics is one of the latest in this series. Its author, Gerald Gems, is a respected and prolifically published scholar in the field of sport history.The extensive bibliographic materials make a significant contribution to the field. Each chapter contains content-specific materials, and, at the conclusion, there is an exhaustive bibliography surveying the historical literature well beyond the scope of the book. The only limitation of these materials comes from the lag time between completion of the manuscript and the publication date.In the opening chapter, Gems addresses the question “Why Study Sport History?” This may not be of concern to professional historians, but it is worth revisiting. Here Gems goes over familiar territory with precision and clarity. Similarly, he does an excellent job of explaining the work of the sport historian, including theory, research, and publication.From here, Gems moves on to an examination of the subfields and subtopics of sport history. On gender, he introduces materials from the ancient world, from early American history and from there moves through the growth of what he terms “feminism” in both Britain and the United States. This is followed by a brief examination of gender studies and body culture. Gems brings some clarity to these subjects while navigating the difficulties of terminology. What is surprising is the lack of any comment on subjects such as sex testing, intersex, and transgender sport experiences, gender affirmation, or related high-profile cases like that of Caster Semenya.The section on “Sport and Nationalism” has a focus on European, British, Japanese, and American nationalism, all of which include the element of imperialism. There is also a brief examination of national sports, a more problematic subject than it appears.Religion and sport, as Deion Sanders once proclaimed, go together like peanut butter and jelly. Fortunately, Gems does not go there. Rather, he begins with an examination of religion and sport in the ancient world. For European religious influences, Gems cites King James, William Bradford and the Puritans, Tom Brown's Schooldays, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. There is a relatively long (given the total length of this study) treatment of the YMCA movement worldwide. From here, Gems offers comments on Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim sport and then concludes this section looking at the rather dubious proposition of sport as religion. Before leaving the pairings, Gems offers a very interesting and clear examination of the rise of leisure and sport and catalogs the many forms of sport that have emerged in the age of leisure. These are contained under the rubric of lifestyle sports and subdivided into a number of categories, such as winter sports, aquatic sports, and aerial sports.Under the heading “Megaevents,” in Chapter 8, Gems begins with the Olympic games, ancient and modern, and concludes this section by enumerating a number of the spinoffs of the Olympics. The World Cup (football) is followed by a raft of other World Cups with varying degrees of importance, lesser cups, regional games, and championships spread across the globe.It is in the final chapter, “Sport History around the Globe,” that Gerald Gems offers a full display of his expertise and the amazing scope of this small but important volume. In this chapter, he assesses the state of the field of sport history and its literature in nations and regions of the world. The strengths and weaknesses are examined, and, overall, Gems offers a hopeful picture. Following this final section is a massive bibliography of sport history and an extremely helpful index to this volume.There are two caveats: A work of this scope will invariably exclude any number of things that another author might include, and it will, on the other hand, include any number of things another author would not include. This means that any reader or reviewer could nitpick this book to death, something that has been largely avoided here. In addition, some may object to Gems's extensive inclusion of materials of a sociological nature, although that seems unwarranted given the overlapping nature of the many subfields of sport studies.Sport History: The Basics belongs in the library of anyone who claims to practice sport history, either as a professional or an amateur. It is useful, enlightening, and indeed inspirational. All in the field should offer a round of thanks to Gerald Gems for taking on this massive task and the quality of the results he has produced.
Read full abstract