Don Mills, Ontario, 1974, pp. 562 &dquo;The American Woman in Sport'' is a work which seeks to give a thorough picture of the subject it is dealing with. Use is made here of an interdisciplinary approach, the components of which are: the following methods: a historical survey in the descriptive part a.s well as a sociological, psychological and physiological (biological) approach.In this way the book reviewed here is a &dquo;thorough interdisciplinary analysis&dquo; of problems, models and processes, related to the participation of the American woman in sport as well as an analysis of the social motivation and the effects of the participation of the American woman in sport as part of American culture.The book is made up of four parts and eleven chapters. Part one, entitled &dquo;Chronicle of Participation&dquo; (pp.:3-1?G) may in principle be treated as an extensive historical background for the actually underdeveloped social models of women's participation in sport and thus in American culture. The problems outlined here will interest above all the historian of physical culture and less the sociologist in his capacity of an empiricist. Some excerpts of this part have genuine popularizing values. Particularly strongly felt can be a lack, and that is true of the entire book, of intercultural or international comparative context. In the second sociological part we find three chapters (pp. 178-279) : &dquo;The Dialectic of Women and Sport&dquo;, &dquo;The Status of Women and Sport&dquo; and &dquo;Social Commentary&dquo;. Part four presents us with the problem of the participation of American women in sports life approached from the psychological point of view (pp. 283-400). Subject of discussion was here the specific aspect 0'£ women's personality traits. Special attention is paid in this part to motivational factors, which to a considerable extent define the degree and intensity of the involvement of women in sports activity. The last part, entitled &dquo;Physical Per-formance&dquo; (pp. 403-529)presents the physical picture of a woman, her anatomy and specific physiological processes, connected with the functioning of the biological organism of the woman in general (such as menstruation and pregnancy). This chapter undoubtedly lays sufficient stress on the physiological barriers for women regarding physical performance in sport in general and competitive sport of sportswomen. The conclusion is only several pages long and has the optimistic title &dquo;Toward the Fut.ure&dquo;. Note also that each part is followed by a rich biblioat SIMON FRASER LIBRARY on June 9, 2015 irs.sagepub.com Downloaded from
The book &dquo;Sport in History&dquo; was the result of discussions of historians and representatives of other social sciences about sport, held at the University of New South Wales, Australia in July 1977. These discussions concentrated on historical problems regarding the development of the various disciplines of contemporary sport mainly in Australia and in countries where English it he official language. The range of problems taken up in this book reflects the place and role of contemporary sport in society. Main stress was laid on problems connected with the changes that have taken place in today's sport under the, influence of industrialization and urbanization during the course of the past 50 years. In addition to this it deals with the popularity of sport from the cultural point of view, problems connected with studies of the relations between sport organizations and society as a whole or its various structural elements. The book also defines the influence and interaction of sport and national ideas or movements of a national nature. An important problem found in almost each treatise that is part of the book is the question of the various ties between contemporary sport and political systems and activities. Subject of an analysis was the evolution of sport from amateur sport to professional sport marked by commercialism. That is why we find in this work also attemps to compare amateur with professional sport.The various problems are being analyzed on the b(asis af examples from popular sport disciplines in English-speaking countries, involving cricket, baseball, various types of football, equestrian sports, though there are also such of the more widespread popular disciplines like cycling or boxing. In addition we also find in this book treatises which discuss in general problems related to contemporary sport. To these belongs an article analyzing in a critical way various explanations, found in literature on the subject of sport successes in the German Democratic Republic over the past twenty years. These matters will undoubtedly be of greater interest to scientists dealing with the more recent history of European sporthistorians and sociologists.In accordance with the intentions of the Publishers one can distinguish four parts in the book, made up of a number of chapters. Thus the first part is composed of six chapters, which deal with a variety of problems connected with the interaction between sport and society as well as the interdependence and ties of sport and politics. The second part of the book is made up of four further chapters, in principle entirely devoted to cricketa sport discipline very little known in the European continent, of course with the exception of Great Britain. The third part contains treatises discussing varioue matters related to the different kinds of football in Australia, England and New Zealand. The last section, set apart from the point of view of subject matter contains treatises devoted to the
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