M. Ann Hall, Bruce Kidd, and Patricia Vertinsky, Educating the Body

Co-authored by three giants in the fields of sport history and the history of physical education, this volume traces the checkered career of physical education in both the Canadian school curriculum and Canadian society from the 1840s to the current day.The book can be described as part history, part celebration, part lament, and part prescription.Its strength derives in good measure from the accomplishments and experiences of these three authors, who have shaped the field with their own scholarship and administrative leadership, and have witnessed in their time the transformation of the field and its aims.Educating the Body was prompted by two factors.It was overdue: more than fifty years had passed since the last history of the field was published.What's more, there is a sinking feeling that physical education is, once again, under siege.This book is a reckoning.Educating the Body is organized in seven roughly chronological chapters which, taken together, assert three central points.Physical education in Canada a) has always been rooted in public, state-sponsored schools though its influence has extended outside them as well, in civic institutions such as the YMCA and YWCA, and in government-funded programs such as "Pro-Rec" and ParticipACTION; b) has always been political, contested terrain on which successive generations of thinkers and states people projected their needs, aspirations, and imperatives; and c) has always been less than inclusive, a place where male privilege and "whiteness" has predominated and where Black and Indigenous children, as well as those experiencing disability, have been made to feel left out.The authors understand that they are publishing this Canadian history at a time when the meaning of history (and of Canada) has been upended by the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2009-2015).What should national history look like in the wake of the 94 Calls to Action?Educating the Body is one convincing answer.It offers a robust description of Indian Residential Schools and their legacy in its introduction, and then masterfully weaves examples from Indigenous experiences with formal physical education into each chapter.(Sadly, but not unexpectedly, they conclude that the IRS curriculum in physical education for Indigenous students was woefully inadequate, as it was in so many other ways.)In the same way, the book balances contexts with topics nicely, occasionally expanding its scope to describe how Confederation, American aggression, world wars, and neoliberalism (and other changes) have influenced the urgency for and shape of physical education.The book is ably written (three authors but one voice) and is usefully illustrated with photographs and a series of insert boxes that highlight (mostly) biographical features of significant figures.Chapter 1 examines Ontario public school founder Egerton Ryerson's vision for physical education as a universal, compulsory force that aimed to produce morality, health, and national spirit -a new citizenry.Though Ryerson's legacy has foundered

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