" In England the latter years of the nineteenth century saw a period of rapid and profound change in the role of women in sports. Kathleen McCrone describes this transformation and the social changes it helped to bring about. Based upon a thorough canvas of primary and secondary materials, this study fills a gap in the history of women, of sport, and of education."

The view that fieldwork in the 'West' is easy or merely a reiteration of what is already 'known' is challenged by the author, who reveals pioneering articles on a wide range of subjects from Gypsies to British boarding schools and feminism.

The Olympic Games, revived in 1896, are the most well known international multisport gathering--but since 1896, hundreds of other competitions based on the Olympic Games model have been established whose histories have not been well documented. The Encyclopedia of International Games captures (in one alphabetical sequence) the histories of these games, many of them for the first time. The work includes major regional events such as the African, Asian, Arab, South Pacific, and Pan American Games; competitions such as the Indian Ocean Island Games, Arctic Winter Games, Island Games, and Games of the Small Countries of Europe; specific populations or professions such as the North American Indigenous Games, Maccabiah Games, World Military Games, World Police and Fire Games, and World Medical and Health Games; and Special Olympics, the Paralympics, games for the blind, and other regional games. Eight appendices, notes, bibliography, index.

First published in 1988. This study can be situated within the history of women, women’s education, women’s rights, sport, leisure and recreation. Its aim is not to establish or submit to review what is known or thought to be known about the Victorian world-view and woman’s place within it, but rather to investigate reactions against this view and the emergence of a counter-view through sport and exercise. An attempt is made to rescue the English sportswoman from the obscuring mists of the past, to discuss her as a transitional figure between opposing views of womanhood and to place her within the context of the general movement for the emancipation of women as an important effect and cause — without necessarily assuming what women’s status in sport and in society should have been.