include How the Game Was Played: Essays In Sports History, and he was the general editor for the six-volume series Cultural History of Sport.
Vamplew applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, Games People Played: A Global History of Sports, and reported the following:
Page 99 looks at how technology has improved sport performance by players making their bodies part of their equipment with golfers, baseballers and basketballers having laser eye surgery to improve their normal eyesight. This, of course, was quite legal, but not the use of steroids to bulk up muscle. It is also suggested that modern swimmers and sprinters may not be that much better than their predecessors, given today’s wave-reducing lane ropes in pools and slip resistant running tracks that return energy to the legs.Learn more about Games People Played at the publisher's website.
The page comes from the chapter dealing with ‘The Past Century or So’ with the preceding ones showing that professionalism began with the Ancient Greeks and Romans, that Medieval Europe hosted a circuit of jousting tournaments at which touring knights fought for booty and prizes, that during the Enlightenment publicans and gamblers began to push the development of sport for their own interests, and that the Industrial Age saw the emergence of mass spectator sport and gate-money leagues.
The page is indicative of the book in that the use of steroids illustrate the dark side of sport, something that features in the book’s historical surveys of match-fixing, drug-taking, environmental destruction and discrimination by gender, race and social class. However, the page is not typical of the book as it features three American sportsmen (Tiger Woods, Mark McGwire and Jesse Owens), while the book aims to be global in scope covering sports and sportspersons worldwide. Hence readers can find information on Australian Rules Football down to wushu and the Yukon International Quest. Sportsmen mentioned include Roman charioteer, Diocles, who won 1,462 races, and the Gracie brothers, whose Scottish father had emigrated to Brazil where they developed a form of ju-jitsu which paved the way for the modern combat sport of mixed martial arts. This is not to forget such outstanding female performers like ‘Lottie’ Dod, Cathy Freeman and Billie Jean King who feature in special vignettes. To use an Australian sporting term, United States sport ‘gets a guernsey’ (there is a discussion on the language of sport) by having a separate chapter devoted to American football, baseball and basketball, hopefully supplying some information new to American sports fans.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
