This volume covers the major socio-economic, political, cultural and sporting dimensions of this global sports event, including bidding for and organizing the 1998 Finals, the improvement of sporting and transport infrastructures, marketing, merchandising and media coverage, policing and security during the month-long competition and building a national team.

Political interference in sport, though commonly associated with Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Soviet Union, has been perceived as something alien to Britain, where both government and sporting bodies have sought to present images respecting the autonomy of sport. However, in the 20th century, the growing politicization of sport in other countries encouraged British governments to view sport as an instrument of policy suportive of British interests in the wider world. Association football, Britain's major sport, came to be seen as a means of projecting favourable images of Britain as a...

In this book Jack Williams takes a look at cricket as a symbol of England in the 1920s and 1930s. Cricket had a vital role in how the English imagined themselves and their social world. Assumptions attached to the high level of sportsmanship within cricket and the associations of cricket with the Church, respect for tradition, the empire, the public schools and reverence for pastoralism meant that cricket was represented as expressing a distinctively English form of moral worth.

This is a study of masculinity as a metaphor and especially of the muscular male body as a moral symbol. It explores the Nazi's preoccupation with the male body as an icon of political power, and the ideology and theories which propelled it.

2001 North American Society for Sports History Book of the Year

This volume studies the formative period of racing between 1790 and 1914. This was a time when, despite the opposition of a respectable minority, attendance at horse races, betting on horses, or reading about racing increasingly became central leisure activities of much of British society.

These essays provide a critical investigation of football cultures, examining local and national impacts of the game's new millennial order over five continents.

The economic successes in the 1980s and early 1990s of the East Asian Newly Industrializing Economies fostered economic integration in the region, and ultimately assured their prominent position in the global economy. After much soul searching both Australia and New Zealand realized the benefits of tying their economic futures to that of East Asia and, as a result, became key economic players in Pacific Asia and indeed the global economy.

In the 19th century, Europe exported its politics, goods, ideas, customs - and not least, its sports, to the rest of the world. This imperialism began a process of cultural diffusion in which sport became a cultural bond, moral metaphor and political symbol. It was a two-way process, for as soon as the world beyond Europe became known to the Europeans, sports from other parts of the world entered Europe. The sports of Europe and the United States were imitated and assimilated and became symbols of national and cosmopolitan identity. This work examines the national and international importance...

Australians are surrounded by beaches. But this enclosure is more than a geographical fact for the inhabitants of an island continent; the beach is an integral part of the cultural envelope. This work analyzes the history of the beach as an integral aspect of Australian culture.

Cricket has changed from a rural, meadowland pastime into a multinational sport and multi-million pound business, based largely in urban agglomerations. This volume looks at the fundamental geography of cricket, especially in England where the game is played by county sides. Besides looking at socio-economic influences, this work examines the physical geography of cricket, in particular, its interrelationship with the local environment and microclimate, and looks ahead to the likely impact that global warming and altered weather patterns will have on the county game.