This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Boxing is a traditional sport in many ways, characterized by continuities in the form of practices and regulations and heavy with legends and heroes reflecting its traditional/historical values. Associations with class, hegemonic masculinity and racialized inclusions/exclusions, however, sit alongside developments such as women's boxing and involvement in Mixed Martial Arts. This book will be the first to use boxing as a vehicle for exploring social, cultural and political change in a global context. It will consider to what degree and in what ways boxing reflects social transformations, and whether and how it contributes to those transformations. In exploring the relationship it will provide new ways of thinking critically about the everyday.

Sport is enjoyed by millions of people across the world, and both watching and playing sport constitutes a major part of modern leisure time. But sport is also a huge worldwide industry. In Globalizing Sport, George Sage invites readers to explore a deeper understanding of the global dynamics of sport - not only competitions but of the big businesses of money, media coverage, athletic apparel and more. He shows how phenomena such as migration, labour, commerce and politics affect the athletes and the fans, continually reshaping the business and experience of sport. Globalizing Sport puts sport in its political, economic and social context, revealing its connections with businesses, countries, media outlets and education systems.

This volume offers a wide-reaching overview of current academic research on women's participation in combat sports within a range of different national and trans-national contexts, detailing many of the struggles and opportunities experienced by women at various levels of engagement within sports such as boxing, wrestling, and mixed martial arts.

Covering a breadth of topics surrounding the current state of women in sports, this two-volume collection taps current events, sociological and feminist theory, and recent research to contextualize women's experiences in sports within a patriarchal society and highlight areas for improvement. Women are continuing to break barriers in all aspects of sports, and a growing number of people are beginning to recognize sex disparities in sports as a social problem. Additionally, women's inclusion and exclusion in sports—and their equitable and inequitable treatment on the playing field—have large-scale social, legal, health, and economic consequences. Women in Sports: Breaking Barriers, Facing Obstacles comprehensively examines the state of women in sports by considering current events, controversies, and trends as well as qualitative and quantitative research. The contributors to this volume take a sociological approach to discussing women in sports by questioning dominant assumptions surrounding notions of women's biological athletic inferiority and by examining other social constructs that affect women's experiences in sports, such as race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and sexual orientation. The book offers a complete and up-to-date account of women's experiences in sports through coverage of the history of women's participation in sports (with a focus on exceptional female athletes) and of the increasing number of women who are competing in traditionally male sports, such as football, baseball, and mixed martial arts. Readers will come away with a greater appreciation for the issues of equity that women face, both within the world of sports and in society in general.

In this impressive book, Barbara Keys offers the first major study of the political and cultural ramifications of international sports competitions in the decades before World War II. Focusing on the United States, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union, she examines the transformation of events like the Olympic Games and the World Cup from relatively small-scale events to the expensive, political, globally popular extravaganzas familiar to us today.

Female Olympian and Paralympian Events is a groundbreaking book that examines women’s sports in the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which have long been underappreciated and under-analyzed. The book begins with a brief background on women’s participation in the Olympic Games and their role relative to the International Olympic Committee, then introduces the underlying Gendered Critical Discourse Analysis theory used throughout the book’s analysis before delving into a literature review of female Olympians and Paralympians’ events. It includes a listing of noteworthy “firsts” in the field, followed by individual discussions of twenty-eight Summer and seven Winter events, analyzed according to their historical, rhetorical, and popular cultural representations. Women’s unique role(s) in the various events are discussed, particular athletes and Paralympic events are highlighted, and original tables are also included. At the end of each section, affiliated organizations and resources are included in this invaluable referential volume.

Discusses the life and boxing career of Jack Johnson.