Rugby has always been a sport with as much drama off the field as on it. For every thrilling last-minute Jonny Wilkinson drop-goal to win the World Cup or Jonah Lomu rampage down the touchline for a try there has been a split, a feud, or a controversy.The Oval World is the first full-length history of rugby on a world scale--from its origins in the village-based football games of medieval times to the globalized sport of the twenty-first century, now played over a hundred countries. It tells the story of how a game played in an obscure English public school became the winter sport of the British Empire, spreading to France, Argentina, Japan, and the rest of the world, and commanding a global television audience of over four billion for the last World Cup final. It also explores how American football--and other games, such as Australian, Canadian, and Gaelic football--emerged from their English cousin.Featuring the great moments in the game’s history and its legendary names--David Duckham, Serge Blanco, Billy Boston, and David Campese, alongside Rupert Brooke, King George V, Boris Karloff, Charles de Gaulle, and Nelson Mandela--The Oval World investigates just what it is about rugby that enables it to thrive in countries with very different traditions and cultures. This is the definitive world history of a truly global rugby.

Product Description: Twenty years of professionalism has seen rugby union undergo dramatic transformations, from changes to everyday training cultures to the growth of the Rugby World Cup into one of the largest global sporting events. The Rugby World in the Professional Era is the first book to examine the effect that professionalism has had across a number of different aspects of the game and the wider socio-cultural significance of these changes through case studies from across the globe...read more

Product Description: A unique insight into the creative world of Jill McNeilly capturing some of the best examples of her art. Jill once said ‘ A day without sewing, painting, or even just simply sitting and thinking in my work room at the top of the house, is quite unbearable...read more

Product Description: Published to mark the career of one of sports history’s pioneers, this book traces the evolution of sport across three continents. It brings together some of sports history’s leading scholars to investigate not only the history of sport but also how that history is written...read more

Product Description: Why are the Olympic Games the driving force behind a clampdown on civil liberties? What makes sport an unwavering ally of nationalism and militarism? Is sport the new opiate of the masses? These and many other questions are answered in this new radical history of sport by leading historian of sport and society, Professor Tony Collins...read more

Product Description: An archaeological dig in the English countryside might be considered the safest of pastimes, but not for Simon Tappins. His life is turned upside down when a dramatic discovery sends him back two thousand years into a world time forgot...read more

Product Description: 1895 And All That...: Inside Rugby League's Hidden History

Since it’s first publication, Rugby’s Great Split has established itself as a classic in the field of sport history. Drawing on an unprecedented range of sources, this deeply researched and highly readable book traces the social, cultural and economic divisions that led, in 1895, to schism in the game of rugby and the creation of rugby league, the sport of England’s northern working class. Tony Collins’ analysis challenges many of the conventional assumptions about this key event in rugby history – about class conflict, amateurism in sport, the North-South divide, violence on the pitch, the development of mass spectator sport and the rise of football. This new edition is expanded to cover parallel events in Australia and New Zealand, and to address the key question of rugby league’s failure to establish itself in Wales. Rugby’s Great Split is a benchmark text in the history of rugby, and an absorbing case study of wider issues – issues of class, gender, regional and national identity, and the impact of the commercialization and recent professionalization of rugby league. This insightful text is for anyone interested in Britain’s social history or in the emergence of modern sport, it is vital reading.

Product Description: Short-listed for the North American Society for Sport History Book Award 2003Alcohol is never far from sporting events. Although popular thinking on the effects of drinking has changed considerably over time, throughout history sport and alcohol have been intimately linked...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: An examination of the case histories of many of the worst computer crashes and software failures which reveals the lessons to be learned from each. The same ten factors recur in most, if not all disasters, and advice is provided on how to avoid a crash. (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This fascinating book delves deeply into the life and music of Wynonie "Mr. Blues" Harris, the notorious, high-living, hard-drinking blues shouter responsible for such 1950s R&B classics as " Good Rockin’ Tonight," "Grandma Plays the Numbers," "Bloodshot Eyes" and so many more! Author Tony Collins reveals surprising facts and intimate details about Wynonie’s life from interviews with dozens of his friends, family and associates...read more