John Bale
Biographic Data
| ID | 268824 |
|---|---|
| NAME | John Bale |
| GIVEN NAMES | John |
| FAMILY NAME | Bale |
| SIGNATURE | BALE J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Keele University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 44 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 93 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 40 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 4 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1890 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Sport and Postcolonialsm
Sport and Film
Professionals, Amateurs and Performance
Who owns the athletic body? It is arguable that it can be both subjected to dominance and affection, by agencies such as a parent, a partner, a teacher, a coach, a chemist, a trainer, a doctor, a m
Running for Black Gold
Historical studies of sports in Africa and the Caribbean are relatively sparse and remain neglected, the exception being cricket and baseball in the West Indies. The two books being reviewed here
Kenyan Running
1997 British Society of Sports History - Lord Aberdare Literary Prize for Sports HistoryThe record-breaking achievements of Kenyan athletes have caught the imagination of the world of sport. How significant really is Kenya in the world of sports? This book, the first to look in detail at the evolution and significance of a single sport in an African country, seeks to answer these and many other questions. Kenyan Running blends history, geography,…
The Global Sports Arena
Historical Dictionary of Track and Field
Peter Matthews, Historical Dictionary of Track and Field (Plymouth, UK: Scarecrow Press, 2012). Pp. 350. $85.00 (hb). ISBN 978-0-81086781-9 Historians researching track and field athletics are few
Anti-Sport
It has been argued that scholars of sports history have denied criticism of sport. However, during the nineteenth century there was considerable criticism of various aspects of sports, ranging from elaborated systems of thought to the minutiae of daily life. Opposition to hunting, boxing and gambling (for example) is well documented, but criticism of a day-to-day nature has been relatively neglected. This paper illustrates the varieties of critic…
Roger Bannister and the Four-Minute Mile
Roger Bannister was the first person to run the mile in under four minutes. Fifty years on, his status, not just as a champion athlete but also as a true British hero, a gentleman and an amateur from a 'golden era' in sport, retains its unblemished appeal. Until now there has been little criticism and even less close historical study of Bannister and his achievement. This book redresses the balance, presenting a revisionist history of Sir Roger B…
Finnish Dreams
Associations and Democracy
It is widely thought that the Nordic nations of Europe possess a strong degree of homogeneity. This conception applies to sport as much as other cultural fields, but the role played by associations, sport, and physical education in the development of the distinctive political culture and democracy of the Nordic countries – especially in the second part of the 19th century – has been strangely and largely overlooked. Precisely because sport, in pr…
The Contribution of Sport to the Nordic Third Way
It is widely thought that the Nordic nations of Europe possess a strong degree of homogeneity. This conception applies to sport as much as other cultural fields, but the role played by sport and physical education in the development of the distinctive political culture and cultural politics of the Nordic countries has been strangely and largely overlooked. Precisely because sport—in principle if not in practice—is based on the possibility of bein…
Sports Stadia
Sports do not require stadia, but in their commodified form they have come to be seen as necessities. In contemporary discussions of the sports stadium two broad themes have attracted the attention of both sports scholarship and public opinion: (1) activity and organization within the stadium, and (2) extra‐stadium effects and implications. Academic approaches to these themes are considered in turn
How Much of a Hero? The Fractured Image of Roger Bannister
Roger Bannister is widely regarded as one of Britain's greatest sporting heroes. However, his career included a number of controversies for which he was strongly criticized. Among such controversies was his unwillingness to disclose his training methods and the highly selective nature of the races in which he was prepared to compete. Several observers also criticized his involvement in the scientifically organized four-minute mile. In many ways B…
Amateurism, Capital and Roger Bannister
Roger Bannister's sub-four-minute mile in 1954 has been celebrated, both at the time and subsequently, as the epitome of amateur athletic achievement. Such an assessment, however, relies on a rather narrow and unsatisfactory definition of amateurism. This essay draws on the work of Pierre Bourdieu to identify various forms of immaterial capital on which Bannister was able to draw or which he gained access to as a result of his athletic prowess. I…
Introduction
Running Cultures
Running is one of the world's most widely practiced sports and recreations but until now it has intended to elude serious study outside of the natural sciences. John Bale brings the sport into the realm of the humanities by drawing on sources including literature, poetry, film, art and sculpture as well as statistics and training manuals to highlight the tensions, ambiguities and complexities that lie hidden beneath the commonplace notion of runn…
Post-Olympism? Questioning Sport in the Twenty-First Century
The Future of Multi-Sport Mega Events Richard Cashman, University of New South Wales Troping Along: A Historian's View of Olympic Scholarship Douglas Booth, University of Otago Citius, Altius, Fortius: A Critique and a Reinterpetation Sigmund Loland, Norwegian Sports University, Oslo What's the Difference between Propaganda for Tourism or for a Political Regime? The 1936 Olympics in World Perspective Arnd Krger, University of Gttingen Acceleratin…
Sites of Sport
The study of built environments such as gymnasiums, football stadiums, swimmimg pools and skating rinks provides unique information about the historical enclosure of the gendered and sexualised body, the body's capabilities, needs and desires. It illuminates the tensions between the globalising tendencies of sport and the importance of local culture and a sense of place. This collection uses spatial concepts and examples to examine the nature and…
Charles Hamilton Sorley, Sport and the Poetics of Running
(2004). Charles Hamilton Sorley, Sport and the Poetics of Running. Sport in History: Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 17-31
Scientific and Romantic
Running Cultures
Running is one of the world's most widely practiced sports and recreations but until now it has intended to elude serious study outside of the natural sciences. John Bale brings the sport into the realm of the humanities by drawing on sources including literature, poetry, film, art and sculpture as well as statistics and training manuals to highlight the tensions, ambiguities and complexities that lie hidden beneath the commonplace notion of runn…
Sport and postcolonialism
Compared with modes of representation such as literature, drama, poetry and dance, the world of sport has been largely neglected in postcolonial studies. At both local and global levels, however, sport has been profoundly affected by the colonial legacy. How are individual nations and different sporting cultures coping with this legacy? What does the end of colonialism mean within particular states and sports? How is postcolonialism linked with s…
Sports Geography
'Space' and 'place' are concepts central to both geography and sport. Places, for example, are the means of identifying most sports teams, while sport both affects, and is affected by, the physical environment and landscape.In this fully revised and updated edition of his classic, discipline-defining text, John Bale comprehensively explores the relationships between sport, place, location and landscape. Drawing on examples from around the world, …
Lassitude and Latitude
During the first half of the 20th century, environmental determinism was a powerful paradigm of geographical scholarship. Among those who accepted environmentalism were Ellen Semple, Ellsworth Huntington and Griffith Taylor. In essence, they argued that the physical environment determined human behaviour. Their writings implied that physical activity was determined by physical-environmental factors, ignoring culture, politics and history. Sports …
Sport and national identity
(1986). Sport and national identity: a geographical view. The International Journal of the History of Sport: Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 18-41
The changing face of football
(2000). The changing face of football: Stadiums and communities. Soccer & Society: Vol. 1, The Future of Football: Challenges for the Twenty‐First Centu, pp. 91-101
The Spatial Development of the Modern Stadium
The British football stadium is an example of highly tcrritorialized space. In the past one hundred years the environment of football has changed from one of unenclosed, multi functional space with considerable spatial interaction among players and spectators (weak rules of exclusion) to enclosed, segmented and monofunctional space with impermeable boundaries and efficient surveillance of crowds (strong rules of exclusion). The analogy is drawn b…
The place of 'place' in cultural studies of sports
Space, Place and Body Culture
The geographer Yi-Fu Tuan has undertaken a wide variety of studies in the field of human and cultural geography. His work has shown a concern for themes ranging from topophilia to the domestication of nature and from space and place to aesthetics. It is possible to utilise Tuan's ideas to point the way to more humanistic approaches to the geographical study of sport. This is done by taking several ‘fragments’ from his writings and applying them t…
Associations and Democracy
It is widely thought that the Nordic nations of Europe possess a strong degree of homogeneity. This conception applies to sport as much as other cultural fields, but the role played by associations, sport, and physical education in the development of the distinctive political culture and democracy of the Nordic countries – especially in the second part of the 19th century – has been strangely and largely overlooked. Precisely because sport, in pr…
Lassitude and Latitude
During the first half of the 20th century, environmental determinism was a powerful paradigm of geographical scholarship. Among those who accepted environmentalism were Ellen Semple, Ellsworth Huntington and Griffith Taylor. In essence, they argued that the physical environment determined human behaviour. Their writings implied that physical activity was determined by physical-environmental factors, ignoring culture, politics and history. Sports …
Racing towards modernity
Cartographic fetishism to geographical humanism
It is sometimes felt that geographical aspects of sports remain under‐researched but a considerable literature relating to spatial and landscape dimensions of sports has been authored by geographers and other scholars espousing an implicitly geographical perspective. The nature of this work has varied according to particular paradigms within the parent discipline of Geography. Early work was descriptive and positivistic, concentrating on the geog…
Industrialists' Attitudes Towards Location on Industrial Estates
Anti-Sport
It has been argued that scholars of sports history have denied criticism of sport. However, during the nineteenth century there was considerable criticism of various aspects of sports, ranging from elaborated systems of thought to the minutiae of daily life. Opposition to hunting, boxing and gambling (for example) is well documented, but criticism of a day-to-day nature has been relatively neglected. This paper illustrates the varieties of critic…
Finnish Dreams
The Contribution of Sport to the Nordic Third Way
It is widely thought that the Nordic nations of Europe possess a strong degree of homogeneity. This conception applies to sport as much as other cultural fields, but the role played by sport and physical education in the development of the distinctive political culture and cultural politics of the Nordic countries has been strangely and largely overlooked. Precisely because sport—in principle if not in practice—is based on the possibility of bein…
How Much of a Hero? The Fractured Image of Roger Bannister
Roger Bannister is widely regarded as one of Britain's greatest sporting heroes. However, his career included a number of controversies for which he was strongly criticized. Among such controversies was his unwillingness to disclose his training methods and the highly selective nature of the races in which he was prepared to compete. Several observers also criticized his involvement in the scientifically organized four-minute mile. In many ways B…
Amateurism, Capital and Roger Bannister
Roger Bannister's sub-four-minute mile in 1954 has been celebrated, both at the time and subsequently, as the epitome of amateur athletic achievement. Such an assessment, however, relies on a rather narrow and unsatisfactory definition of amateurism. This essay draws on the work of Pierre Bourdieu to identify various forms of immaterial capital on which Bannister was able to draw or which he gained access to as a result of his athletic prowess. I…
Introduction
On the Norman Font in the Church of All Saints, Toftrees, Norfolk
Industrialists' Attitudes Towards Location on Industrial Estates
International Sports History as Innovation Diffusion
Sport and national identity
(1986). Sport and national identity: a geographical view. The International Journal of the History of Sport: Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 18-41
Johnstonian anarchy, inspectorial interest and the undergraduate education of PGCE geography students
This paper reports the results of a survey of geography students in the UK undertaking a postgraduate certification in teaching. The survey indicates that many students in their undergraduate courses had apparently not covered topics with which as school teachers they would presumed to be competent. The implications of these findings for college geography courses and for teacher training are then discussed
The place of 'place' in cultural studies of sports
A geography of contemporary Britain
Sports Geography
Sports Geography
Cartographic fetishism to geographical humanism
It is sometimes felt that geographical aspects of sports remain under‐researched but a considerable literature relating to spatial and landscape dimensions of sports has been authored by geographers and other scholars espousing an implicitly geographical perspective. The nature of this work has varied according to particular paradigms within the parent discipline of Geography. Early work was descriptive and positivistic, concentrating on the geog…
Racing towards modernity
The Spatial Development of the Modern Stadium
The British football stadium is an example of highly tcrritorialized space. In the past one hundred years the environment of football has changed from one of unenclosed, multi functional space with considerable spatial interaction among players and spectators (weak rules of exclusion) to enclosed, segmented and monofunctional space with impermeable boundaries and efficient surveillance of crowds (strong rules of exclusion). The analogy is drawn b…
The Stadium and the City
The stadium in the city - a modern story, by Niels Kayser Nielsen, Odense University, Denmark sport, the stadium and metropolitan life, by Joseph Maguire, Loughborough University the Cophagen Idraetsparken - from democratic institution to private enterprise, by Jim Toft, University of Copenhagen, Denmark moving to suburbia - stadium relocation and modernization in Vienna, by Roman Horak, Institute for Cultural Studies, Vienna, Austria the stadium…
Kenyan Running
African Affairs- An excellent monograph on the phenomenal success of Kenyan middle distance running which will be of interest to a wide readership including everyone with a serious interest in athletics from all over the world, scholars with a specialist interest in socio-cultural studies of sport and specialists in African Studies. Provides an exemplar for future scholarly work in comparative studies of sport and studies of the sports globalisat…
Space, Place and Body Culture
The geographer Yi-Fu Tuan has undertaken a wide variety of studies in the field of human and cultural geography. His work has shown a concern for themes ranging from topophilia to the domestication of nature and from space and place to aesthetics. It is possible to utilise Tuan's ideas to point the way to more humanistic approaches to the geographical study of sport. This is done by taking several ‘fragments’ from his writings and applying them t…
Body Cultures
Body Cultures explores the relationship between the body, sport and landscape. This book presents the first critically edited collection of Henning Eichberg's provocative essays into 'body culture'. Eichberg, a well-known scholar in continental Europe who draws upon the ideas of Elias, Focault, Habermas and others, is now attracting considerable interest from Anglo-American sociologists, historians and geographers. This collection has been extens…
Human Geography and the Study of Sport
The changing face of football
(2000). The changing face of football: Stadiums and communities. Soccer & Society: Vol. 1, The Future of Football: Challenges for the Twenty‐First Centu, pp. 91-101
Books Reviewed
Sports Geography
'Space' and 'place' are concepts central to both geography and sport. Places, for example, are the means of identifying most sports teams, while sport both affects, and is affected by, the physical environment and landscape.In this fully revised and updated edition of his classic, discipline-defining text, John Bale comprehensively explores the relationships between sport, place, location and landscape. Drawing on examples from around the world, …
Lassitude and Latitude
During the first half of the 20th century, environmental determinism was a powerful paradigm of geographical scholarship. Among those who accepted environmentalism were Ellen Semple, Ellsworth Huntington and Griffith Taylor. In essence, they argued that the physical environment determined human behaviour. Their writings implied that physical activity was determined by physical-environmental factors, ignoring culture, politics and history. Sports …
Running Cultures
Running is one of the world's most widely practiced sports and recreations but until now it has intended to elude serious study outside of the natural sciences. John Bale brings the sport into the realm of the humanities by drawing on sources including literature, poetry, film, art and sculpture as well as statistics and training manuals to highlight the tensions, ambiguities and complexities that lie hidden beneath the commonplace notion of runn…
Sport and postcolonialism
Compared with modes of representation such as literature, drama, poetry and dance, the world of sport has been largely neglected in postcolonial studies. At both local and global levels, however, sport has been profoundly affected by the colonial legacy. How are individual nations and different sporting cultures coping with this legacy? What does the end of colonialism mean within particular states and sports? How is postcolonialism linked with s…
Running Cultures
Running is one of the world's most widely practiced sports and recreations but until now it has intended to elude serious study outside of the natural sciences. John Bale brings the sport into the realm of the humanities by drawing on sources including literature, poetry, film, art and sculpture as well as statistics and training manuals to highlight the tensions, ambiguities and complexities that lie hidden beneath the commonplace notion of runn…
Post-Olympism? Questioning Sport in the Twenty-First Century
The Future of Multi-Sport Mega Events Richard Cashman, University of New South Wales Troping Along: A Historian's View of Olympic Scholarship Douglas Booth, University of Otago Citius, Altius, Fortius: A Critique and a Reinterpetation Sigmund Loland, Norwegian Sports University, Oslo What's the Difference between Propaganda for Tourism or for a Political Regime? The 1936 Olympics in World Perspective Arnd Krger, University of Gttingen Acceleratin…
Sport and Mega-Event Impacts (31 works) · Sports, Gender, and Society (29 works) · Sociology (23 works) · Political science (22 works) · History (19 works) · Art (17 works) · Law (17 works) · Geography (15 works) · History (12 works) · Law (12 works)