Sport and the Pursuit of War and Peace from the Nineteenth Century to the Present: War Minus the Shooting?

This volume of wide-ranging essays by sport historians and sociologists examines the complex, overlapping relations of war, peace and sport through a series of case studies from South and North America, Europe, North Africa, Asia and New Zealand. Authors study the enduring relationship between military and sporting cultures from formal military training in the late nineteenth century to contemporary esports. They consider how sport is practiced and impacted at a time of war and the debates thrown up around the morality and desirability of continuing to play sport when others are dying for their nation or while the nation is occupied by the enemy. They also examine the legacy, memory and commemoration of particular wars as expressed in a range of sporting practices in the immediate aftermath of conflicts ranging from the World Wars to wars of independence. Finally, the volume examines the complex relationship between sport and peace, considering how sport can operate as pacification in some contexts and a tool of reconciliation in others. Together, and through an introductory, framing essay, these essays offer scholars of sport, conflict studies and cultural history more broadly a multi-national analysis of the war-peace-sport nexus that has operated throughout the world since the late nineteenth century.