The Field: Truth and Fiction in Sport History

by Booth; Douglas

• ISBN13: 9780415282277
• ISBN10: 0415282276
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-02-13
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The literature on sport history is now well established, taking in a wide range of themes and covering every activity from aerobics to zorbing. However, in comparison to most mainstream histories, sport history has rarely been called upon to question its foundations and account for the basis of its historical knowledge.In this book, Booth offers a rigorous assessment of sport history as an academic discipline, exploring the ways in which professional historians can gather materials, construct and examine evidence, and present their arguments about the sporting past.Part I examines theories of knowledge, while Part II goes on to scrutinize the uses of historical knowledge in popular and academic studies of sport history. With clear structure, examples, summary tables and a detailed glossary, The Field provides students, teachers and researchers with an unparalleled resource to tackle issues fundamental to the future of their subject, and sets the agenda for the debate to come.

Author Biography

Douglas Booth is Professor of Sport and Leisure Studies at the University of Walkato, New Zealand.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	x
Prologue	1	(4)
An introduction to sport historiography	5	(18)
Models	7	(6)
Explanatory paradigms	13	(7)
Clarifications	20	(3)
PART I Models	23	(84)
Facts, objectivity and interpretation: truth in sport history	25	(18)
Questioning the facts	26	(5)
Validating historical truths	31	(7)
Reconstructionism and questions of objectivity	38	(2)
Conclusion	40	(3)
Facts, concepts and structures: theory in sport history	43	(19)
Reconstructionism: theory, agents, facts and concepts	44	(4)
Constructionism: formal concepts, structures and theory	48	(2)
Functionalism	50	(3)
Structuralism	53	(5)
The politics of theory	58	(2)
Conclusion	60	(2)
Narratives, non-narratives and fiction: presenting the sporting past	62	(20)
Narrative in reconstructionist thought	63	(4)
Non-narrative historical presentations	67	(2)
Deconstructionism: the poetics of narrative	69	(7)
History and fiction	76	(4)
Conclusion	80	(2)
Remnants of the past: sources, evidence and traces in sport history	82	(25)
Official documents (and archives)	84	(4)
Documents of mass communication	88	(6)
Oral testimony (and memory)	94	(4)
Visual materials: films and photographs	98	(8)
Conclusion	106	(1)
PART II Explanatory paradigms	107	(103)
Advocacy: debunking myths	111	(16)
Setting the record straight	112	(6)
Advocacy, partisanship and objectivity	118	(5)
The contexts and functions of sporting myths	123	(3)
Conclusion	126	(1)
Comparison: expanding the evidence	127	(16)
Metaphorical allusions	130	(3)
Systematic comparisons	133	(5)
Post-binary comparisons	138	(4)
Conclusion	142	(1)
Causation: explaining determinants in sport	143	(16)
A contentious and problematic paradigm	144	(3)
Narrative and causation	147	(3)
The `science' of causation	150	(3)
Agents as causes	153	(4)
Structures as causes	157	(1)
Conclusion	158	(1)
Social change: explaining transformations	159	(19)
Systematic evolutionism: from traditional to modern sport	162	(3)
Structuralism, from modern to late capitalist sport	165	(8)
Relational structurism: making modern sporting culture	173	(3)
Conclusion	176	(2)
Context: interpreting the big picture	178	(16)
The nature of context	179	(4)
Problems of context	183	(6)
A model for contextualisation	189	(4)
Conclusion	193	(1)
New culture: interpreting language and discourse	194	(16)
Language and discourse: avenues of knowledge, truth and power	195	(4)
Sport, cultural texts, narratives	199	(3)
Epistemological issues	202	(5)
Conclusion: returning to the present	207	(3)
Epilogue	210	(12)
Reflexivity	211	(6)
Politics and the purpose of history	217	(4)
Finale	221	(1)
Notes	222	(79)
Glossary	301	(6)
Select bibliography	307	(28)
Index	335