From the perspective of the commercial, voluntary and state sectors of sport and leisure provision, this book examines a number of aspects of the social history of recreation. Among the topics explored are the development of spectator sports, the attractions of the cinema, the role of the press, radio and television, and the significance of sport and leisure clubs. The relationships of social class, gender and ethnicity that have affected the development of leisure are given prominence in an analysis which spans the whole of the 20th century.

The book is a selection of essays from the author s work since the early 1980s. It presents an analysis of political and cultural trends based upon a series of case studies drawn from the North West of England, covering mainly the years between the Third Reform Act (1884) and the outbreak of the Second World War. The region was a heavily industrialized one, seen by many as in the vanguard of changes that gave rise to what is often referred to as modern society. In politics the emergence in North West England of a new labour consciousness is plainly evident, but so too is the survival and...