The nineteenth century was a golden age in British sports. Not only were sports immensely popular, but they began to assume the forms and qualities that still characterise them today. Moreover, the latter part of the century saw a significant participation in sports by women, and this book provides the first overall examination of this early development and the social changes that it helped to bring about. Since women’s entry into sports was chiefly a consequence of the campaign for better female education, the book begins with an account of sports at the Oxbridge women’s colleges, at the girls' public schools and at the new women’s physical training colleges. It then examines team sports such as hockey, lacrosse, and cricket and individual sports such as tennis, golf and cycling. Other chapters discuss the medical attitudes and prejudices toward women’s participation in sports and the role of sports in changing female dress.

" 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."

This study examines the complex relationship between women and leisure, drawing upon recent feminist theory. The text charts the changes in perception, representation and experiences of leisure for women between 1920 and 1960, and relates the changes to life cycle lines.

Sport and the Emancipation of European Women: the Struggle for Self-fulfilment explores the contributions of European women to the emancipation of women worldwide. It expands understanding of the need for their attitudes and actions and celebrates their achievements in freeing the female body from unwarranted political, cultural and social restraint in the courageous pursuit of the Enlightenment 's ' secular value system: ‘the unity of mankind and basic personal freedoms and {a} world of tolerance, knowledge, education and opportunity' (from Roy Porter, Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World, 2004). The Collection records the pulling down of European barriers via sport to women’s realisation of ability and release of talent and their conquest of crushing inhibitions, inexcusable irrationality, intolerable prejudice and denial of opportunity : no barriers came down without confrontation. The struggle to overthrow prejudice set for the first time in the context of recent European history and the recent evolution of European sport, is described in this pioneering Collection. It is the first publication to focus specifically on European women and their struggle for emancipation via sport. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

Concise, up-to-date survey of the sporting 'revolution', and its cultural and economic consequences.

As Sydney prepares to host the 2000 Olympic games, this study assesses the cultural impact of sport on the Australasian countries. Here, as in other parts of the world, sport is taken as an assertion of both individual and group identity, a demonstration of modernity and a source of personal, local and regional esteem. This collection explores the political, social and aesthetic influence of modern sport, attitudes to the body and the evolution of specific Australasian visions of sport.