A History of Sport in Europe in 100 Objects

This ambitious and fascinating publication is the result of a successful funding proposal through the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant system. Previously, there have been some notable edited collections based around European sports history and written in English, including those with a focus on football by Herzog and Brändle (2015) and Vonnard, Quin and Bancel (2016). A few others have examined particular periods in history such as Vamplew, Dyreson and McClelland in their A Cultural History of Sport series. This book has a huge breadth and depth with a chronology which stretches from ancient civilisations to the present day and encompasses a wide range of pre-codified and modern sports. It is packed neatly into a single publication and 110 authors from thirty-nine countries have contributed. With 100 objects discussed, briefly but adequately, it is also refreshingly illustrated. The objects can be loosely categorised as equipment, methods of measurement or development, documents or literature, photographs and posters, venues, art, emblems of commemoration and clothing, most of which have a national or political symbolism and are of value in different ways. As the editors, Daphné Bolz and Michael Krüger, have written, ‘this book is an attempt to emphasise the international framework of sport, and while each object is indeed specific and sometimes strongly anchored regionally, all are embedded in the global history of sport.