In this impressive book, Barbara Keys offers the first major study of the political and cultural ramifications of international sports competitions in the decades before World War II. She examines the transformation of events like the Olympic Games and the World Cup from relatively small-scale events to the expensive, celebrity-packed, politically resonant, globally popular entertainment extravaganzas familiar to us today. Focusing on the United States, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union, she details how countries of widely varying ideologies were drawn to participate in the emerging global culture. She tells of Hollywood and Coca-Cola jazzing up the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, of Hitler crowing over the 1936 Berlin games, and of the battle between democracy and dictatorship in the famed boxing matches between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling. Keys also presents one of the best accounts to date of the Soviet relationship to Western sports before the rise of the "big red sports machine."
While international sport could be manipulated for nationalist purposes, it was also a vehicle for values-such as individualism and universalism-that subverted nationalist ideologies. The 1930s were thus a decade not just of conflict but of cultural integration, which laid a foundation for the postwar growth of international ties.
In this impressive book, Barbara Keys offers the first major study of the political and cultural ramifications of international sports competitions in the decades before World War II. She examines the transformation of events like the Olympic Games and the World Cup from relatively small-scale events to the expensive, celebrity-packed, politically resonant, globally popular entertainment extravaganzas familiar to us today. Focusing on the United States, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union, she details how countries of widely varying ideologies were drawn to participate in the emerging global culture. She tells of Hollywood and Coca-Cola jazzing up the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, of Hitler crowing over the 1936 Berlin games, and of the battle between democracy and dictatorship in the famed boxing matches between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling. Keys also presents one of the best accounts to date of the Soviet relationship to Western sports before the rise of the "big red sports machine."
While international sport could be manipulated for nationalist purposes, it was also a vehicle for values-such as individualism and universalism-that subverted nationalist ideologies. The 1930s were thus a decade not just of conflict but of cultural integration, which laid a foundation for the postwar growth of international ties.
Barbara J. Keys is Associate Professor of U.S. and International History at the University of Melbourne.
A meticulously researched and tightly argued study of a historical
trajectory intertwining the dissemination of sport, the rise of an
'imagined' global community, and transnational cultural formation
in the early 20th century. The book is truly remarkable in its
analytical sophistication, breathtaking in the depth and breadth of
its multinational archival foundation, and eye-opening in its
elucidation of previously overlooked connections between disparate
historical forces breaching the boundaries of national history.
-- Sayuri Guthrie-Shimizu H-Diplo
International history rewards ambition, and if such reach produces
lacunae, it is more than compensated for by the new insights such
work brings. Globalizing Sport is such an ambitious work. It is an
exemplary example of the 'new diplomatic history, ' and will
provide inspiration for scholars seeking to incorporate cultural
history into the study of international affairs.
-- Daniel Gorman Canadian Journal of History
Keys notes that the growth of international sport occured despite
the Depression, ideological conflicts, and chauvinism. Sport grew
in that seemingly hostile setting through its mass appeal and
ability to consolidate group identity at local and national levels,
and by providing a means to mediate between national and
international identities, which involved acceptance and adoption of
such values as competition, hierarchy, high achievement,
individualism, and universalism... Keys presents a smartly argued,
innovative theory. The book is an important contribution to the
history of sport and the history of international relations.
-- Steven A. Riess Journal of American History
Through accessible, crisp writing and impressive research in U.S.,
German, Russian, and Swiss archives, Keys...details the rapid
growth of international sport despite the inhospitable
nationalistic environment of the 1930s. In order to elucidate
sport's peculiar potency as the means of mediating between national
and international identities, Keys analyzes the 1932 Olympics in
Los Angeles (whose publicity was practically hijacked by the
Hollywood glitterati), Adolf Hitler's 1936 Berlin Olympics, and
Josef Stalin's early sovietization of soccer as examples of how
nation-states joined the global sport system to promote
nationalist--if not chauvinistic--objectives and, yet, fomented
internationalism. Although clearly demonstrating that sport tends
toward indigenization and xenophobia (best illustrated by Friedrich
Ludwig Jahn's German gymnastics movement in the early 19th
century), the author emphasizes the transnational origins and
connections of modern sport.
-- E. A. Sanabria Choice
This fascinating book charts the development of international sport
as a key component of the rapidly evolving cultural contacts
between nations in the early twentieth century. Keys examines how
the United States, Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany attempted to use
international sporting events both to cement their standing in the
world community and to send important global messages about their
governments and policies. An important, potentially groundbreaking
study.
-- Michael L. Krenn, author of Fall-Out Shelters for the Human
Spirit: American Art and the Cold War
With deep research in American, German, and Russian sources as well
as those of international organizations, accompanied by very wide
reading in cultural history, Barbara Keys has written an engaging
account of the evolution of international sports in the 1930s. The
writing is always clear, even arresting. Globalizing Sport is a
tour de force.
-- Ernest R. May, Harvard University
What an original and exciting book! Other scholars have treated
sport seriously, but this fascinating new study elevates our
understanding of the place of international sport to a level of
importance far higher than the purely symbolic plane to which it is
typically consigned. Besides telling the fascinating story of
internationalism in sport in the 1930s, Barbara Keys also provides
fresh insights into the functioning of modern international
relations in general. As she makes wonderfully clear, sport is a
striking example of the autonomous power exerted by the
non-political aspects of global society. No doubt about it: this
work is destined to become a model for other scholars in the
burgeoning new field of international history.
-- Frank Ninkovich, St. John's University
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