Review
'This is a clearly written, maturely assessed, and sufficiently comprehensive introduction to the subject. It provides fine summaries of the chosen topics and will be a useful textbook for the hundreds of students still flocking to the study of sport and leisure. They will appreciate the chronologies of events at the end of every chapter and the guides to further reading. Hill is to be congratulated for producing a work that is long overdue.' - Matthew Hilton, University of Birmingham, Economic History Review 'Provocative and illuminating, polemical and instructive, Hill's book is genuinely engaging.' - Adrian Smith, Reviews in History 'As a general cultural history, this book provides an informative historical overview across a wide range of leisure activities.' - Mike Marinetto, Cardiff University, Political Studies 'A thoughtful and well-presented account which all our students will be urged to read.' - Tony Mason, De Montfort University 'A clearly organised and valuable contribution to the study of leisure in the 20th Century.' - Dr Harvey Taylor, University of Northumbria, Carlisle Campus '...clear and accessible for undergraduate readers.' - Professor Peter Beck, Kingston University 'This is a valuable addition to the British sport and leisure history material. It provides clearly articulated frameworks for analysis which students will find particularly useful.' - Ian Henry, Loughborough University 'This book's strength is that it brings together such a wide body of literature, and will provide any student with an ideal introduction to the subject of sport and leisure.' - Peter Miskell, University of Reading, Business History 'Written in crystal-clear prose, even when in the jargon-laden domain of cultural studies, it is, in part, a survey of the historiographical debates that have come to define the field. As such, it is lucid and illuminating. But unlike many syntheses, it also possesses a freshness of its own.' - Andy Croll, Twentieth Century British History 'One of the strengths of the book lies in the clear articulation of the theories that informed the writing...These inform the work but never override the evidence. Evidence is foundational to this book. Hill also locates leisure within the wider context of social history. Very simply, the scholarship is impeccable.' - Alan Metcalfe, Labour/Le Travail
Book Description
In Sport, Leisure and Culture in Twentieth-Century Britain, Jeffrey Hill examines the social history of recreation, including: the development of spectator sports; the attractions of the cinema; tourism; the role of the media; the significance of clubs and societies. Commercial, voluntary and state "sectors" of sport and leisure provision are all included, and relationships of social class, gender and ethnicity in sport and leisure are given prominence in an analysis which spans the whole century.
