The International Journal of the History of Sport
ISSN: 0952-3367 (Print) 1743-9035 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fhsp20
Historia del deporte de la prehistoria al renacimiento Alfonso Manas To cite this article: Alfonso Manas (2011) Historia del deporte de la prehistoria al renacimiento, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 28:13, 1909-1910, DOI: 10.1080/09523367.2011.620274 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2011.620274
Published online: 02 Nov 2011.
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Date: 24 November 2015, At: 09:16
The International Journal of the History of Sport
1909
the field should appreciate. There is also some utility in Black Obsession as a text on the rise, demise and social construction of sports heroes; a topic that has become increasingly popular in academe. As such, it potentially makes a small contribution to the field and should not be kicked into touch (yet).
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Geoffrey Z. Kohe University of Worcester
[email protected] Ó 2011, Geoffrey Z. Kohe http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2011.620271
Historia del deporte de la prehistoria al renacimiento [History of Sport from Prehistory to Renaissance], by Antonio J. Monroy and Gema Sa´ez, Seville, Wanceulen, 2008, 186 pp., photographs. e21,00, ISBN 978-84-9823-222-6. The task that the authors had in mind to undertake – to cover more than 25 centuries of the history of sport – is a daunting and challenging one. To cover such a period in fewer than 200 pages has meant a careful process of selection and synthesis of the themes dealt with. Thus, though at some points the work adopts too general a view, other themes, on the other hand, are given more attention and analysed in an interesting way, with a reader-friendly style that makes the reading appealing and facilitates the comprehension of the theme exposed. The book is to be commended on the way it deals with a few subjects that may be of interest for those scholars who are not Spaniards but who are researching the history of sport in Spain, such as the coverage of tournaments and jousts. Structurally, the work is divided into seven chapters, each one devoted to a chronological theme: Prehistory, early civilisations, Greece, Etruria, Rome, tournaments and, finally, the Renaissance. The result is a handy work that succeeds in giving a fairly complete depiction of how sport evolved from its origins up to the sixteenth century. Chapter 1, ‘The Origins of Sport Activity’, starts by introducing the theme, expounding some of the traditional theories about the origins of sport (e.g. Popplow, Lukas and Eichel, Eppensteiner etc). The next chapter, ‘The First Civilisations and Physical Exercise’, discusses Sumer, Egypt, Crete and Thera and, finally, China. The section on Sumer deals mainly with wrestling, boxing and hunting, whereas the one about Egypt is the most satisfactory of this chapter, treating key sporting activities of ancient Egypt (i.e. wrestling, stick fighting, hunting, dance) and making some interesting reflections on the sports practised by the Pharaohs and on how they used their sportive feats to show their power to their people (p. 35). By contrast, the section devoted to Crete and Thera is almost anecdotal, concentrating chiefly on the discussion of bull leaping (Crete) and on the fresco of the pugilist boys of Thera. More detailed is the treatment given to China, focusing mainly on the description of three sports –cuju (an early form of football), chuiwan (a kind of golf that could be practised individually or in teams) and sheilu (archery) – and of several types of wrestling that ‘later on would derive in the Asian fighting styles we know today (judo, sumo etc)’ (p. 45).
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Book Reviews
Chapter 3, ‘The Greek World’, starts with the way in which physical education and sport are treated in the Homeric poems, then studies Sparta and, finally, delves into the educational system in Greece, analysing the role that sport played in it, and how it changed over the centuries (the ideas of Plato, Aristotle etc). The section ‘The Great Games’ is mainly a detailed description of the Olympic Games, relying chiefly on the theories of scholars such as Gardiner, Diem etc. The best of this chapter is to be found, nonetheless, at the end, when the authors enter into an interesting discussion about two aspects that normally are not given much attention when studying Greek sport – namely, spectators and prizes. The fourth chapter, ‘The Etruscan Civilisation’, describes the sports of the Etruscans (greatly influenced by Greek sport), while the chapter dealing with Rome makes a really exhaustive exposition of the numerous Roman ludi (Capitolini, Apollinares, Megalenses etc) and of daily-life games (mainly ball games) and then focuses on chariot races and gladiator combats. Chapter 6, ‘The Culture of Tournament’, provides most interest and originality to a wider audience. The authors dedicate 21 pages to analysing in detail several aspects relating to tournaments, jousts and pas d’armes, from the position of the church, the crown and the nobles, to the way in which those contests were held. Together with references to Germany, England and France, what truly makes this chapter appealing is the continuous use by the authors of Spanish sources of the time, obviously the easiest for them to obtain, and which very rightly they have converted into the main body of textual evidence for conducting the discussion of this chapter. Thus, for example, when explaining the rules of the tournaments, the text is illustrated with some fragments of the regulations used by king Alfonso XI for holding those contests (reproduced in the fourteenth-century Spanish in which they were written) and when discussing the pas d’armes, the text of the sixteenth-century chronicle that records the most famous of those events that was held in Spain provides us with first-hand information. Hence the reader gets a thoroughly detailed image of chivalric events in Spain. Whereas the previous activities were the monopoly of the nobility, the chapter is completed with a masterly compilation of several of the games that were practised by the lower classes throughout Europe, although again, special attention is given to Spain. Similarly, the last chapter, ‘Physical Activity during the Renaissance’, studies how the ideas of the Renaissance affected sport, focusing mainly on Italy, England and Spain. The section devoted to this last country stands out on account of its notable exposition of the ideas of the two main figures that dealt with sport in the Spanish Renaissance – Luis Vives and Cristo´bal Me´ndez – which helps the reader to get a complete picture of the situation of sport in Spain at that time. Unfortunately the book has a major weakness for scholars. The text is not sufficiently referenced, so that often the reader simply doesn’t know where some data and information came from. Even so, the work is well worth a place on university bookshelves, if only for the excellent treatment of sport in the Spain of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Alfonso Manas University of Granada
[email protected] Ó 2011, Alfonso Manas http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2011.620274
