Tag: Bieke Gils

In the modern era, mere bids to host the Games have sparked fierce opposition from groups motivated by local or global concerns. According to our reviewer Russell Holden, Russell Field’s edited collection Winters of Discontent: The Winter Olympics and a Half Century of Protest and Resistance (Illinois University Press), offers a valuable and long overdue insight into a surprisingly neglected area of sport history, which extends far beyond the niche status that has all too often been accorded to this significant sports gathering.

In the edited collection Athletics in the Nordic Countries: History and Development, edited by Jörg Krieger, scholars from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden explore historical developments and current phenomena in the sport of athletics. The authors provide insight into sport officials, events, and athletes from the Nordic countries that have shaped the international athletics scene. In his review, Alan Bairner presents the basic features of a book that obliges the reader to think about what this most accessible of sports is and what it could be, for good or ill.

The Research Handbook on Major Sporting Events, edited by Harry Arne Solberg, Rasmus K. Storm and Kamilla Swart (Edward Elgar) examines the hosting of major sporting events and the impacts they can have on stakeholders. Christian Tolstrup Jensen has read an impressive compilation of scientific studies in the field of major sport event research that gives the initiated reader a useful and nuanced overview of the state-of-the-art in event studies, its understudied areas and a who-is-who in the field.

Edited by Mikkel B. Tin, Frode Telseth, Jan Ove Tangen & Richard Giulianotti, and published by Routledge, The Nordic Model and Physical Culture examines the relationships between the Nordic social democratic welfare system and physical culture, across the domains of sport, education, and public space. Our reviewer is Joe Piggin. He has been physically active in almost all Nordic countries – and he quite likes this book.

The Journal of Sport History is published three times a year by the North American Society for Sport History (NASSH). The purpose of NASSH is to promote, stimulate, and encourage study and research and writing of the history of sport, and to support and cooperate with local, national, and international organizations having the same purposes.