You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
This is a comprehensive history of tennis and arguably, the first truly scholarly history of any individual sport. The author amasses a range of linguistic and documentary evidence to chart the growth of this popular sport.
Supported by a startling wealth of linguistic and documentary research, Gillmeister charts the global evolution of tennis from its origins in the early Middle Ages to the appearance of the modern game in the 20th century. Along the way, he debunks established myths about the history of the game, including those surrounding the invention of the Davis Cup. 136 illustrations, 16 in color.
Sport as it is largely understood today was invented during the long eighteenth century when the modern rules of sport were codified; sport emerged as a business, a spectacle, and a performance; and gaming organized itself around sporting culture. Examining the underexplored intersection of sport, literature, and culture, this collection situates sport within multiple contexts, including religion, labor, leisure time, politics, nationalism, gender, play, and science. A poetics, literature, and culture of sport swelled during the era, influencing artists such as John Collett and writers including Lord Byron, Jonathan Swift, and Henry Fielding. This volume brings together literary scholars and...
This book is a close taxonomic study of the pivotal role of games in early modern drama. The presence of the game motif has often been noticed, but this study, the most comprehensive of its kind, shows how games operate in more complex ways than simple metaphor and can be syntheses of emblem and dramatic device. Drawing on seventeenth-century treatises, including Francis Willughby’s Book of Games, which only became available in print in 2003, and divided into chapters on Dice, Cards, Tables (Backgammon), and Chess, the book brings back into focus the symbolism and divinatory origins of games. The work of more than ten dramatists is analysed, from the Shakespeare and Middleton canon to rare...
Sporting Sounds presents an eclectic collection of essays, all of which are concerned with various relationships between sport and music. This unique book includes a range of international case studies, examines the use of music as a motivational aid for players, and the historical roots of music in sport.
A completely fresh look at the enmity between Britain and Germany that all but destroyed Europe. Half a century before 1914, most Britons saw the Germans as poor and rather comical cousins - and most Germans looked up to the British as their natural mentors. Over the next five decades, each came to think that the other simply had to be confronted - in Europe, in Africa, in the Pacific and at last in the deadly race to cover the North Sea with dreadnoughts. But why? Why did so many Britons come to see in Germany everything that was fearful and abhorrent? Why did so many Germans come to see any German who called dobbel fohltwhile playing Das Lawn Tennisas the dupe of a global conspiracy? Packe...
Begin with 1918 Niagara-on-the-lake: its opulence and extravagance, the actors and the elite, the tennis and golf and lawn bowling, and the promise of a fantastical amusement park lifestyle. The region is thriving. Sir Adam Beck is building the world’s largest hydro power station. Nikola Tesla has found a way to make electricity accessible to all of humanity. And a man named King Camp Gillette has developed plans for a futuristic utopian society that would have the mighty Niagara River as its lifeblood. Add two men with special abilities and powerful incentives. Jack Saunders is a troubled veteran of the First World War who desperately wants to make a good life for his beloved wife and friends, but his addictions and impulsive behaviour keep turning his noble intentions into disaster. Aaron O’Malley is an affluent business owner who sees that the region is on the verge of an evolution, one that he must cultivate for his personal gain. But O’Malley needs Jack. He preys upon his vulnerability and draws him into an ambitious scheme that he claims will bring wealth and power beyond their wildest dreams. History is about to change, and Jack is the key to its outcome.
"This collection of eleven essays examines nineteenth-century legal and extralegal attempts to restrict freedom of speech and the press as well as the efforts of others to push back against those restrictions"--
Describes and analyzes the varieties of sport, games and physical education practiced in Western Europe between 450-1650 AD in their historical and cultural context.
Providing a social, economic and political study of field sports and those other activities and customs labelled as rural sports, from the earliest of times to the present day in all of the United Kingdom and Ireland. This book brings together several distinct types of traditional rural sports with particular emphasis on the social history and 'traditional' aspects. It contains several hundred entries focusing on individual sports and others providing analysis of key concepts, themes and terminologies. The Encyclopedia of Traditional British Rural Sports is an invaluable reference that provides students, scholars and sports enthusiasts with a focussed and authoritative source of information on the history and culture of rural sport in Britain.