Sport and International Politics

Sport and International Politics

Author: Pierre Arnaud

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-07-04

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1135816298

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Examines the shaping of sports by both the fascist and communist institutions of Europe during the interwar period. It shows how sports were used as an instrument of propaganda and psychological pressure by major political and sporting nations.


Sport under Communism

Sport under Communism

Author: M. Dennis

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2012-04-24

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 0230369030

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Based on original Stasi and Communist Party archival sources, this book uncovers why East Germany was for two decades running one of the most successful nations in the Summer and Winter Olympics, exploring how the central elite sports system was beset by internal tensions and disputes.


The Whole World Was Watching

The Whole World Was Watching

Author: Robert Edelman

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2019-12-10

Total Pages: 423

ISBN-13: 1503611019

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In the Cold War era, the confrontation between capitalism and communism played out not only in military, diplomatic, and political contexts, but also in the realm of culture—and perhaps nowhere more so than the cultural phenomenon of sports, where the symbolic capital of athletic endeavor held up a mirror to the global contest for the sympathies of citizens worldwide. The Whole World Was Watching examines Cold War rivalries through the lens of sporting activities and competitions across Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the U.S. The essays in this volume consider sport as a vital sphere for understanding the complex geopolitics and cultural politics of the time, not just in terms of commerce and celebrity, but also with respect to shifting notions of race, class, and gender. Including contributions from an international lineup of historians, this volume suggests that the analysis of sport provides a valuable lens for understanding both how individuals experienced the Cold War in their daily lives, and how sports culture in turn influenced politics and diplomatic relations.


Routledge Handbook of Sport and Politics

Routledge Handbook of Sport and Politics

Author: Alan Bairner

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-10-04

Total Pages: 1222

ISBN-13: 1317646665

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Sport is frequently considered to be an aspect of popular culture that is, or should be, untainted by the political. However, there is a broad consensus among academics that sport is often at the heart of the political and the political is often central to sport. From the 1936 Olympic Games in Nazi Germany to the civil unrest that preceded the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, sport and politics have remained symbiotic bedfellows. The Routledge Handbook of Sport and Politics goes further than any other book in surveying the complex, embedded relationships between sport and politics. With sections addressing ideologies, nation and statehood, corporate politics, political activism, social justice, and the politics of sports events, it introduces the conceptual foundations that underpin our understanding of the sport-politics nexus and examines emergent issues in this field of study. Including in-depth case studies from North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, this is an essential reference for anybody with an interest in the social scientific study of sport.


Defending the American Way of Life

Defending the American Way of Life

Author: Kevin B. Witherspoon

Publisher: University of Arkansas Press

Published: 2018-12-01

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 1682260763

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Winner, 2019 NASSH Book Award, Anthology. The Cold War was fought in every corner of society, including in the sport and entertainment industries. Recognizing the importance of culture in the battle for hearts and minds, the United States, like the Soviet Union, attempted to win the favor of citizens in nonaligned states through the soft power of sport. Athletes became de facto ambassadors of US interests, their wins and losses serving as emblems of broader efforts to shield American culture—both at home and abroad—against communism. In Defending the American Way of Life, leading sport historians present new perspectives on high-profile issues in this era of sport history alongside research drawn from previously untapped archival sources to highlight the ways that sports influenced and were influenced by Cold War politics. Surveying the significance of sports in Cold War America through lenses of race, gender, diplomacy, cultural infiltration, anti-communist hysteria, doping, state intervention, and more, this collection illustrates how this conflict remains relevant to US sporting institutions, organizations, and ideologies today.


Islam after Communism

Islam after Communism

Author: Adeeb Khalid

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2014-02-08

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 0520957865

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

How do Muslims relate to Islam in societies that experienced seventy years of Soviet rule? How did the utopian Bolshevik project of remaking the world by extirpating religion from it affect Central Asia? Adeeb Khalid combines insights from the study of both Islam and Soviet history to answer these questions. Arguing that the sustained Soviet assault on Islam destroyed patterns of Islamic learning and thoroughly de-Islamized public life, Khalid demonstrates that Islam became synonymous with tradition and was subordinated to powerful ethnonational identities that crystallized during the Soviet period. He shows how this legacy endures today and how, for the vast majority of the population, a return to Islam means the recovery of traditions destroyed under Communism. Islam after Communism reasons that the fear of a rampant radical Islam that dominates both Western thought and many of Central Asia’s governments should be tempered with an understanding of the politics of antiterrorism, which allows governments to justify their own authoritarian policies by casting all opposition as extremist. Placing the Central Asian experience in the broad comparative perspective of the history of modern Islam, Khalid argues against essentialist views of Islam and Muslims and provides a nuanced and well-informed discussion of the forces at work in this crucial region.


The Politics of Football in Yugoslavia

The Politics of Football in Yugoslavia

Author: Richard Mills

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2018-03-30

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 1786733595

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Winner of the Lord Aberdare Literary Prize for 2018 Even before Tito's Communist Party established control over the war-ravaged territories which became socialist Yugoslavia, his partisan forces were using football as a revolutionary tool. In 1944 a team representing the incipient state was dispatched to play matches around the liberated Mediterranean. This consummated a deep relationship between football and communism that endured until this complex multi-ethnic polity tore itself apart in the 1990s. Starting with an exploration of the game in the short-lived interwar Kingdom, this book traces that liaison for the first time. Based on extensive archival research and interviews, it ventures across the former Yugoslavia to illustrate the myriad ways football was harnessed by an array of political forces. Communists purposefully re-engineered Yugoslavia's most popular sport in the tumult of the 1940s, using it to integrate diverse territories and populations. Subsequently, the game advanced Tito's distinct brand of communism, with its Cold War-era policy of non-alignment and experimentation with self-management. Yet, even under tight control, football was racked by corruption, match-fixing and violence. Alternative political and national visions were expressed in the stadiums of both Yugoslavias, and clubs, players and supporters ultimately became perpetrators and victims in the countries' violent demise. In Richard Mills' hands, the former Yugoslavia's stadiums become vehicles to explore the relationship between sport and the state, society, nationalism, state-building, inter-ethnic tensions and war. The book is the first in-depth study of the Yugoslav game and offers a revealing new way to approach the complex history of Yugoslavia.


Sport in Socialist Yugoslavia

Sport in Socialist Yugoslavia

Author: Dario Brentin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-09-24

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 0429838638

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The history of sport in socialist Yugoslavia is a peculiar lens through which to examine the country’s social, cultural and political transformations. Sport is represented as one of the most popular and engaging cultural phenomena of social life. Sport both embodied the social dynamics of the socialist period as well as revealing questions of the everyday lives of the Yugoslav people. Ultimately, sport was closely intertwined with the country’s overall destiny. This volume offers an introduction into the myriad social functions that sport served in the Yugoslav socialist project. It illustrates how sport was central to the establishment of Yugoslavia’s physical and leisure culture in the early post-Second World War period, an international promotional tool for Yugoslav communists championing the ideological superiority of the ‘Brotherhood and Unity’ and the Non-Aligned Movement, as well as a social field in which the ideological contradictions of Yugoslav socialism became increasingly apparent. The chapters expand the existing knowledge of the processes that defined Yugoslav sport and contribute to a more nuanced understanding of socialist Yugoslavia in the years between 1945 and 1991. This book was originally published as a special issue of The International Journal of the History of Sport.


Sport Politics

Sport Politics

Author: Jonathan Grix

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-08-24

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 1137562838

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This innovative new text examines sport's relationship with politics and argues that sport has always been political, even as far back as antiquity. However, in the last 30 years there has been an unprecedented politicization of sport through increasing government intervention. Jonathan Grix takes a comprehensive and engaging look at sport politics by examining state involvement in initiatives from sports mega-events through to grass-roots and community sport activities. Providing an accessible introduction to this growing area of study, the text examines a number of approaches to the topic – including theories from Political Science, Sociology and International Relations – and adopts a critical framework throughout. In doing so the text discusses the relationship between social capital and sport, how governments use sport for non-sporting objectives and the role of governance in sport policy. Real-world examples demonstrate just how entwined sport and politics are: from ardent soccer fans effectively 'locked-in' by ever-increasing ticket prices, to taxpayer's money funding ever more extravagant international sports mega-events, to the moral and political implications of doping.