1st Edition
East Plays West Sport and the Cold War
The Cold War spanned some five decades from the devastation that remained after World War Two until the fall of the Berlin wall, and for much of that time the perception was that only on the Eastern side were politics and sport inextricably linked. However, this assumption underestimates the extent to which sport was an important symbol for both power blocs in their ongoing ideological struggle.
This collection of essays from leading international authorities on sport, culture and ideology brings together an impressive body of work organized around key political themes and outstanding moments in sport, and is at once a political history of sport and an illuminating new perspective on the forces that shaped this unsettled time.
Introduction David L. Andrews and Stephen Wagg 1. Totalitarian Regimes and Cold War Sport: Steroid ‘Übermenschen’ and ‘Ball Bearing Females’ Rob Beamish and Ian Ritchie 2. Verbal Gymnastics: The Soviet Sports Administration and the Decision to Enter the Olympic Games, 1947-1952 Jenifer Parks 3. Cold War Expatriot Sport: Symbolic Resistance - and International Response - in Hungarian Water Polo at the Melbourne Olympics, 1956 Robert E. Rinehart 4. Cold War Football: British-European Encounters in the 1940s and 50s Ronnie Kowalski and Dilwyn Porter 5. ‘Oscillating Antagonism’: Soviet-British Athletics Relations, 1945-1960 John Bale 6. ‘If You Want the Girl Next Door….’ Olympic Sport and the Popular Press in Early Cold War Britain Stephen Wagg 7. The ‘Muscle Gap’: Physical Education and U.S. Fears of a Depleted Masculinity 1954-63 Jeff Montez de Oca 8. Good Versus Evil? Drugs, Sport and the Cold War Paul Dimeo 9. The Cold War and the (Re) Articulation of Canadian National Identity: The 1972 Canada-USSR Summit Series Jay Scherer, Gregory H. Duquette and Daniel S. Mason 10. ‘One Day When the Yankees….’ Cuban Baseball, the United States and the Cold War Milton H. Jamail 11. Playing the ‘Race Card’: US Foreign Policy and the Integration of Sports Damion Thomas 12. ‘Miraculous’ Masculinity Meets Militarization: Narrating the 1980 USSR-US Men’s Olympic Ice Hockey Match and Cold War Politics Mary G. MacDonald 13. The Soviet Union and the Olympic Games of 1980 and 1984: Explaining the Boycott to Their Own People Evelyn Mertin 14. ‘Sport and Politics Don’t Mix’. Chinas’ Relationship with the IOC During the Cold War Susan Brownell 15. Sport After the Cold War: Implications for Russia and Eastern Europe James Riordan 16. Performing America’s Past: Cold War fantasies in a Perpetual State of War Michael Silk, Bryan Bracey and Mark Falcous 17. ‘Yankee Go Home’: Sport and Anti-Americanism in South Korea Eunha Koh, David L. Andrews and Ryan White
Biography
Stephen Wagg is Reader in Sport and Society at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK.
David L. Andrews is Associate Professor in Sport, Commerce and Culture at the University of Maryland, USA.
