Medicine, Sport and the Body: A Historical Perspective

Description

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. What role does sports medicine play in today's society? Is it solely about treating sports injuries? Should it only be concerned with elite sport? This book provides a history of the relationship between sport, medicine and health from the mid-19th century to today. It combines the sub-disciplines of the history of medicine and the history of sport to give a balanced analysis of the role of medicine in sport and how this has evolved over the past two centuries. In an age where sports medicine plays an increasingly prominent role in both elite and recreational sport, this book provides a timely and clear analysis of its rise and purpose.

Neil Carter is Senior Research Fellow in the International Centre for Sport History and Culture at De Montfort University, UK. He has published widely in the history of sport, and is the author of The Football Manager: A History (2006).

Neil Carter's book provides an excellent broadsweep of the main subject areas, consistently based on a thorough use of primary and secondary sources, pulled together in clear thematic framework . . . thoroughly researched and written in an engaging, fluent style. -- Paul Dimeo, University of Stirling * The International Journal of the History of Sport * By focusing primarily on Britain, [Carter] has provided a detailed and well-rounded account of how sports medicine developed in the society that produced much of modern sport as we know it ... A principal strength of the book is the author's constant embedding of sports medicine and high-performance sport within the related topics of nationalism and state policy. -- John Hoberman, The College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas * Social History of Medicine * [An] essential reference for anyone seeking to understand the contemporary dynamics of the practice of physical exercise. -- Gregory Quinn, Lausanne * Gesnerus (Bloomsbury translation) * The history of medicine and the history of sport are elegantly combined [in this book] and Carter uses both sources and previous research to point to interesting paradoxes and complicities in the history of the body ... Suitable, and highly recommended, as teaching material for students -- Susanna Hedenborg, Dept. of Sport Sciences, Malmo University, Norway * Idrottsforum.org: Nordic Sport Science forum *