Tag: Hans Bolling

Histories of Women’s Football in Britain and Ireland, edited by Fiona Skillen, Helena Byrne and Gary James (Peter Lang Publishing) brings together a range of researchers to explore the growth and development of the women’s game in Britain and Ireland. Hans Bolling has read a book that sheds new light on a phenomenon for which interest has increased significantly during the 21st century and also highlights forgotten and/or ignored pioneers. Reading the book from cover to cover it may seem repetitive, but that also means that each chapter can be read on its own.

Samhällsidrotten och idrottssamhället. Humanistisk och samhällsvetenskaplig idrottsforskning under 50 år [Sport in society and the society of sports. Humanistic and social science sports research over 50 years] is edited by Tomas Peterson and published as a celebration of 50 years of Swedish sport studies within the social sciences and humanities. We went abroad to find a suitable reviewer – not a Swede but Swedish speaking – and Ansgar Molzberger accepted the cumbersome task of reviewing this 556 page tome. And he did well, we are happy to bring his review to your attention.

Public school education in the second half of the nineteenth century was completely dominated by classics and sport. Rejecting the view that these were competing strands resulting in friction between aesthetic scholars and athletic philistines, in Games, Greek and Pluck: Classicism, Masculinity, Elite Education and British Sport, 1850–1914 (Peter Lang) Andy Carter shows how classicism and athleticism were closely entwined. As usual, our reviewer Hans Bolling offers enlightening reflections and comparisons related to the work under review, concluding that Carter has produced an excellent book.

Den 31 maj avled professor emeritus Bill Sund – sociolog och historiker, fotbolls- och cyklingsforskare – efter flera års sjukdom. Bill var en flitig skribent med ett flertal böcker och artiklar bakom sig, varav en del publicerades på idrottsforum.org och av Bokförlaget idrottsforum.org. Hans Bolling hade under sin forskarutbildning förmånen att ha Bill Sund som sin handledare, och han tecknar här ett porträtt av Bill som akademisk mentor, medspelare på fotbollsplanen, och därtill livslång vän.

Historian Matthew Taylor’s new book World of Sport: Transnational and Connected Histories (Routledge) examines the development of modern sport from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1960s in the light of transnational approaches to history. Historian Hans Bolling is our reviewer, and after introducing us to transnational figure skating legend Jackson Haines, he applies himself to the book with a slightly critical stance, expressing doubts about the historiographical gains of Taylor’s transnational application, while still being impressed by the author’s scholarship – “sports history at its best.”

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.

Drawing on examples from the past six centuries, David Owen’s Aux Armes!: Sport and the French, an English perspective (Harvester Press) explores sport’s philosophical standing in France’s cultural DNA; its role in the popularisation of the Republic; the birth of the Olympics, the Tour de France and the football World Cup. Seasoned sport historian Hans Bolling would have liked more of everything, but settles, quite content, with Owen’s choice of stories and format; an appetizer from which the reader can move on, and in doing so being a more well-read person.

Sedan historikern Jan Lindroth disputerade med sin avhandling om idrotten som folkrörelse 1974 har det gått ett halvt sekel, och således firar svensk idrottsforskning sitt femtioårsjubileum 2024. Under perioden har idrottsvetenskap vuxit fram som ett nytt utbildnings-, forsknings- och forskarutbildningsämne. Idag finns det idrottsvetenskapliga institutioner eller motsvarande vid tio lärosäten, och fem av dem har forskarutbildning. Forskningsämnena, som från början var pedagogik, historia och psykologi, omfattar idag över trettio olika ämnesdiscipliner.

Jim Thorpe rose to world fame as a mythic talent who excelled at every sport. Most famously, he won gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. In Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe (Simon & Schuster) David Maraniss details the life of the great athlete. Historian Hans Bolling, who has written extensively about the 1912 Olympics, is our reviewer, and he finds that Maraniss’ comprehensive biography really lets its reader meet Jim Thorpe.

Conor Heffernans new book Indian Club Swinging and the Birth of Global Fitness: Mugdars, Masculinity and Marketing (Bloomsbury) tells the story of the rise and growth of club swinging as it spread from India to Europe and America, asking why and how it became so popular. Hans Bolling likes a good historical account, and the history of Club Swinging was new to him. He commends and recommends Heffernan’s interesting, readable and well-researched book about a phenomenon that fell out of fashion well over a century ago.