Tag: Kristian Gerner
A highly readable history of sports in the City of Light
Maxence Leconte’s edited volume Sport in Paris: Retracing the Culture of Play and Games in the City of Light (1854–2024) (Peter Lang) revisits the development of recreational and professional sporting activities in the French capital, the first comprehensive piece of scholarship exclusively dedicated to the relationship between sport, history, and culture in the City of Light. Our reviewer Kristian Gerner quite likes the colloquial and rather redundant style of writing which provides readability without excluding distinct conclusions and good summaries.
Football as soft power: English football and British appeasement policy in the interwar years
Drawing on wide-ranging archival research, International Football as Cultural Diplomacy: Britain Versus the Dictators in the 1930s by Peter J. Beck (Routledge) examines the cultural diplomatic role played by British football in international affairs, British foreign policy, and international football during the 1930s. Kristian Gerner’s knowledgeable review hails Beck’s efforts to demonstrate the failure of Britain’s pre-war politics of appeasement, while also underlining that Beck’s book is really a book about soccer and a good read for football aficionados.
The drama behind East Germany’s 1968 acceptance into the Olympic fold revealed
In her award-winning Bidding for the 1968 Olympic Games: International Sport’s Cold War Battle with NATO (University of Massachusetts Press), Heather L. Dichter considers how NATO and its member states used sport as a diplomatic arena during the height of the Cold War, and how international sport responded to political interference. In his review, our foremost expert on the history of sport diplomacy and international politics Kristian Gerner is impressed by Dr. Dichter’s meticulous study of the competition for the Winter Games in 1968.
This book shows that sports diplomacy is a prominent factor in international relations in the 21st century
In Sports Diplomacy: Sports in the Diplomatic Activities of States and Non-State Actors (Lexington Books), Michał Marcin Kobierecki analyzes the place and role of sport within public diplomacy, including theoretical conceptualizations of the category of sports diplomacy as a sub-category of public diplomacy. Eminent sport historian Kristian Gerner is our reviewer, and he finds a comprehensive analysis of sport diplomacy suitable for readers new to the field as well as for knowledgeable readers who will gain new insights.
Seminal work on the role and function of sport during the Cold War era
The Whole World Was Watching: Sport in the Cold War, edited by Robert Edelman & Christopher Young (Stanford University Press), examines Cold War rivalries through the lens of sporting activities and competitions across Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the U.S. Our reviewer is historian Kristian Gerner, and he finds that the multifaceted analysis in the book reveals how states as well as individual athletes impacted the development of sport and society in the cold war period.
“Entertaining reading about football as a vital element in the human comedy”
In Heather L. Dichter’s edited volume Soccer Diplomacy: International Relations and Football since 1914 (Univerity Press of Kentucky) an international group of experts analyzes the relationship between soccer and diplomacy. We handed the book to Kristian Gerner, professor of history at Lund University and our expert reviewer in sport and international relations. He found that the book offers readable analyses of soccer as an instrument of diplomacy, but questions the use and understanding of the chosen terminology.
Sports as soft power politics and media entertainment
Richard Arnold’s collected volume Russia and the 2018 FIFA World Cup (Routledge) brings together leading scholars working in Russian studies, sociology and political science to analyse the 2018 World Cup and assess its significance for sport, Russia and the world. Our reviewer Kristian Gerner finds that the anthology gives a readable and informative account of the role of sports in Russian society. The soft power potential of sports rests not, however, with President Putin but with Pussy Riot and the young, educated generation, sports fans included.
A well-researched and highly readable story of the role that sports played in American Cold War diplomacy
In Toby C. Rider’s and Kevin B. Witherspoon’s edited volume Defending the American Way of Life: Sport, Culture, and the Cold War (The University of Arkansas Press), leading sport historians present new perspectives on high-profile issues in this era of sport history. Kristian Gerner, professor of history at Lund University, is our knowledgeable reviewer, and he highlights the role played by African Americans, internationally as well as in the domestic civil rights movement.
Concise and very condensed encyclopedia of sport in international relations
Stuart Murray’s new book Sports Diplomacy: Origins, Theory and Practice (Routledge) is an ambitious attempt to create a new sub-discipline in international history by writing 7000 years of sport history from a diplomacy perspective. Our reviewer is renowned history professor Kristian Gerner, and he is intrigued, overwhelmed, appreciative and exhausted.
A thought-provoking narration about sport as a substitute for war
Japanese Imperialism: Politics and Sport in East Asia: Rejection, Resentment, Revanchism examines the legacies of Japanese imperialism in light of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The anthology is edited by J.A. Mangan, Peter Horton, Tianwei Ren and Gwang Ok and published by Palgrave. Professor Kristian Gerner sees this as a fine example of history writing that takes moral issues seriously.
