Erik Nielsen

Svend Gehrs

Sportens stemmer

The House is Not a Home

Matthew Llewellyn

Prior to the outbreak of World War II, the British presided over the largest Empire in world history, a vast transoceanic and transcontinental realm of dominions, colonies, protectorates and mandates that covered over one-quarter of the world’s land mass and comprised a population of over 450-million subjects. Spanning Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania, over fifty modern nations—currently recognized by the International Olympic Committee—were governed and controlled by the British crown at some stage prior to the gradual dissolution of the Empire. The British World and the Five Rings seeks to explore the relationship between the former British Empire and the Olympic Movement. It pays due regard to the settler dominions, but it also addresses those territories who were less willing partners in the British imperial project. In doing so, the tendency of so-called ‘British World’ histories to promote an apologia for Empire is rejected in favour of a critical approach to imperialism. Combining thorough research with engaging and accessible writing, The British World and the Five Rings is applicable to many fields of Olympic scholarship making it a central work in the growing field of sports studies. This book was published as a special issue of Sport in Society.

The British World and the Five Rings

Sport and the British World, 1900-1930 is a ground-breaking transnational study into the way that amateurism in sport was defined in Australia and New Zealand, and the implications that this had on international understandings of Britishness. Australasians selectively applied aspects of dominant English forms of amateurism and contributed to international debates about the nature of sport as a result. They also contributed to understandings of Britishness through their engagement with Britons across the world. The relationship with their counterparts in England was tense, but the Australasians were ultimately unwilling to follow a separate path, while Canada seemed to provide a more hospitable 'British' environment that mixed modern approaches to sport with a specifically British framework. A shared British identity was strong enough to tie Australians and New Zealanders together before World War One, but its removal after the war saw them separate.

Erik Nielsen

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