Product Description: Debates around the ‘sport for development and peace’ (SDP) movement have entered a new phase, moving on from simple questions surrounding the utility of sport as a tool of international development. Beyond Sport for Development and Peace argues that critical research and new perspectives and methodologies are necessary to balance the local aspects and global influences of sport and to better understand the power relations embedded in SDP on a transnational scale...read more

Product Description: International sporting events, including the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup, have experienced profound growth in popularity and significance since the mid-twentieth century. Sports often facilitate diplomacy, revealing common interests across borders and uniting groups of people who are otherwise divided by history, ethnicity, or politics...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: Sport is increasingly regarded as a powerful tool in international development. In this comprehensive introduction to the area of ‘sport-for-development’, leading researcher Fred Coalter critically evaluates the strengths and weaknesses and successes and failures of sport-for-development policies and programs...read more

Product Description: The Politics of the Olympics: A Survey provides information on and analysis of the relationship between politics and the Olympic Games. It is argued and demonstrated throughout the book that sport and politics have been and are intimately connected and nowhere is this relationship more apparent than in the Olympic Games...read more

Identifying talent in athletes and developing that ability to its fullest potential is a central concern of sport scientists, sports coaches and sports policy makers. This book offers a comprehensive synthesis of current knowledge in talent identification and development in sport, from the biological basis of ability to the systems and processes within sport through which that ability is nurtured. Written by a team of leading international experts, the book explores key factors and issues in contemporary sport, including: genetics secondary factors such as birth date, cultural context and population size perceptual motor skill acquisition and expertise sports development policy in-depth case studies, including European soccer, East African running and US pro sports. With an emphasis throughout on practical implications and processes for all those working in sport, the book offers an authoritative evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of contemporary systems for identifying and developing talent in sport. This is important reading for any student, researcher or practitioner with an interest in skill acquisition, youth sport, elite sport, sports coaching or sports development.

Product Description: Beyond the realm of sports and spectacle, states host the Olympic Games for political, social, and cultural reasons. In particular, organizers have used the Olympics as an opportunity to redefine and reassert their national identities through performance...read more

Identifies, illustrates and evaluates the major approaches to comparative and transnational analysis in sports studies, addressing common assumptions that can hamper meaningful research. This book covers theoretical and substantive contexts and introduces four typologies for comparative research, each supported by case studies and discussion.