Sport and Democracy in the Ancient and Modern Worlds

Sport and Democracy in the Ancient and Modern Worlds
Author: Paul Christesen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2012-10-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107012694

This book explores the relationship between sport and democratization. Drawing on sociological and historical methodologies, it provides a framework for understanding how sport affects the level of egalitarianism in the society in which it is played. The author distinguishes between horizontal sport, which embodies and fosters egalitarian relations, and vertical sport, which embodies and fosters hierarchical relations. Christesen also differentiates between societies in which sport is played and watched on a mass scale and those in which it is an ancillary activity. Using ancient Greece and nineteenth-century Britain as case studies, Christesen analyzes how these variables interact and finds that horizontal mass sport has the capacity to both promote and inhibit democratization at a societal level. He concludes that horizontal mass sport tends to reinforce and extend democratization.

Sport

Sport
Author: Peter J. Miller
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2022-12-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1350140228

Modern sport cannot be understood without ancient sport. Sport saturates contemporary society and the global reach of sport and its intense popularity characterizes the modern world. But, at the same time, sport is one of the most ancient human pursuits. In the globalized sport of today, the type of athletic performance and the ideology of sport and its apparent origins are mostly derived from the model of one pre-modern civilization: Graeco-Roman antiquity. Juxtaposing ancient writers with recent ones, including the modern Olympic founder Pierre de Coubertin and physical fitness impresario Bernarr Macfadden, and by examining the representation of sport in Olympic films, Miller demonstrates the ancient heritage of contemporary sport, and the creative ways in which ancient sport has been adapted, appropriated, mishandled and reimagined. Sport today contains a surprising contradiction: its explicit modernity (from its technological sophistication and integration into capitalist markets to its institutionalization and celebrity culture) and its supposed antiquity (from the mythology of the Olympics to the ancient roots of sporting civic and national pride, and the emotional and near religious fervour of sports fans). This book intervenes in one of the most important of the receptions of classical antiquity by examining how sports personalities, agencies, institutions and movements have consciously connected themselves to the Graeco-Roman past, even as they continue to insist on their own centrality in the modern world.

Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World

Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World
Author: Donald G. Kyle
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 375
Release: 2014-12-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 1118613562

The second edition of Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World updates Donald G. Kyle’s award-winning introduction to this topic, covering the Ancient Near East up to the late Roman Empire. • Challenges traditional scholarship on sport and spectacle in the Ancient World and debunks claims that there were no sports before the ancient Greeks • Explores the cultural exchange of Greek sport and Roman spectacle and how each culture responded to the other’s entertainment • Features a new chapter on sport and spectacle during the Late Roman Empire, including Christian opposition to pagan games and the Roman response • Covers topics including violence, professionalism in sport, class, gender and eroticism, and the relationship of spectacle to political structures

A Companion to Sport and Spectacle in Greek and Roman Antiquity

A Companion to Sport and Spectacle in Greek and Roman Antiquity
Author: Paul Christesen
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 692
Release: 2014-01-07
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1444339524

A Companion to Sport and Spectacle in Greek and Roman Antiquity presents a series of essays that apply a socio-historical perspective to myriad aspects of ancient sport and spectacle. Covers the Bronze Age to the Byzantine Empire Includes contributions from a range of international scholars with various Classical antiquity specialties Goes beyond the usual concentrations on Olympia and Rome to examine sport in cities and territories throughout the Mediterranean basin Features a variety of illustrations, maps, end-of-chapter references, internal cross-referencing, and a detailed index to increase accessibility and assist researchers

Athletics in the Ancient World

Athletics in the Ancient World
Author: E. Norman Gardiner
Publisher: Courier Corporation
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2002-11-01
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 9780486424866

This comprehensive text focuses mostly on athletics in classical Greece and Rome, emphasizing the relationship between athletics and religion, art, and education. Also discussed are such events as throwing the discus and javelin, the pentathlon, the stadium and the foot-race, jumping, wrestling, boxing, ball play, and a Greek athletic festival. According to the Times (London) Literary Supplement, the book "should command the attention not only of classical scholars but of all who are interested in athletics for their own sake; and for such readers, [the author] has spared no pains to make his work intelligible." Unabridged republication of Athletics of the Ancient World, originally published by the Oxford University Press, London, 1930. 137 black-and-white illustrations. Bibliography. Index and Glossary.

Sport in the Ancient World from A to Z

Sport in the Ancient World from A to Z
Author: Mark Golden
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2004-06-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1134535953

Sport in the Ancient World from A to Z covers an extraordinarily wide range of Greek and Roman sporting activities. Arranged in an easy-to-use dictionary format, this volume includes more than 700 entries discussing ancient athletes, festivals, important sites, equipment and concepts. The approach throughout is comprehensive yet succinct, with key topics, such as athletic festivals, chariot racing, prizes and the role of women receiving more detailed discussion. Each entry concludes with pointers to the most important sources of information, both ancient and modern. The places mentioned in the text are picked out on a useful map, and a timeline of significant developments and events is also included. Reliable, enjoyable, and up-to-date, this handy work of reference will suit readers from student level upwards.

Sport and Festival in the Ancient Greek World

Sport and Festival in the Ancient Greek World
Author: David Phillips
Publisher: Classical Press of Wales
Total Pages: 449
Release: 2003-12-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 1914535227

How did sport and festival affect the ancient Greek city? How did the values of athletics pervade Greek culture? This collection of fifteen new studies from an international cast took its inspiration from the exceptional Sydney Olympics of 2000. The focus here is on the ancient world, but additionally there is a sophisticated look at how Greek artefacts linked with sport can best be presented to the modern world.

Sport, Democracy and War in Classical Athens

Sport, Democracy and War in Classical Athens
Author: David Pritchard
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2013
Genre: History
ISBN: 110700733X

This book explains why the democracy of classical Athens generously sponsored elite sport and idolised its sporting victors.

Sport in the Greek and Roman Worlds

Sport in the Greek and Roman Worlds
Author: Thomas Francis Scanlon
Publisher: Oxford Readings in Classical S
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2014
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199215324

From the Minoan bull-leaping to the ancient Olympics and the enigmas of their contests, this first volume of Sport in the Greek and Roman Worlds contains nine articles and chapters of enduring importance to the study of sport in ancient Greece, a field located at a crucial intersection of social history, archaeology, literature, and other aspects of Greek culture. The studies have been updated with addenda by the original authors, and two of the articles that were originally published in German or French have been translated into English here for the first time. The studies, selected for breadth and importance of historical topics, include: Greek sport in its epic, heroic, and Bronze Age origins; the ancient Olympics in its relation to religion, politics, and diversity of competitors; Greek events in track and field and equestrian events. A companion second volume complements this one with studies on the social and economic aspects of Greek sport, the role of Greek sport in the Roman era, and forms, functions and venues of Roman spectacles. The articles in both volumes offer an excellent starting point to inspire newcomers to the study of ancient sport, and to give students and scholars an informative set of models for present knowledge and future research.

How to Do Things with History

How to Do Things with History
Author: Danielle Allen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 425
Release: 2018-07-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190649909

How to Do Things with History is a collection of essays that explores current and future approaches to the study of ancient Greek cultural history. Rather than focus directly on methodology, the essays in this volume demonstrate how some of the most productive and significant methodologies for studying ancient Greece can be employed to illuminate a range of different kinds of subject matter. These essays, which bring together the work of some of the most talented scholars in the field, are based upon papers delivered at a conference held at Cambridge University in September of 2014 in honor of Paul Cartledge's retirement from the post of A. G. Leventis Professor of Ancient Greek Culture. For the better part of four decades, Paul Cartledge has spearheaded intellectual developments in the field of Greek culture in both scholarly and public contexts. His work has combined insightful historical accounts of particular places, periods, and thinkers with a willingness to explore comparative approaches and a keen focus on methodology. Cartledge has throughout his career emphasized the analysis of practice - the study not, for instance, of the history of thought but of thinking in action and through action. The assembled essays trace the broad horizons charted by Cartledge's work: from studies of political thinking to accounts of legal and cultural practices to politically astute approaches to historiography. The contributors to this volume all take the parameters and contours of Cartledge's work, which has profoundly influenced an entire generation of scholars, as starting points for their own historical and historiographical explorations. Those parameters and contours provide a common thread that runs through and connects all of the essays while also offering sufficient freedom for individual contributors to demonstrate an array of rich and varied approaches to the study of the past.