This book looks historically at the harm that has been inflicted in the practice of sport and at some of the issues, debates and controversies that have arisen as a result. Written by experts in history, sociology, sport journalism and public health, the book considers sport and injury in relation to matters of social class;

Introduction.- Part 1 Bodily Damage and Pre- and Early Industrial Sport.- 1 The Perils of Rewarding Toughness: Honor, Injury, and Death in the Athletics of the Ancient World.- 2 ‘Beastly furie, and exstreme violence’: pain, injury and death resulting from football and other ball games played in the British Isles before the Reformation.- 3 Violence, injury, and the politics of the evolving football codes.- 4 “Though he was evidently suffering great pain, he bore it well:” Public Discourse on Benefits, Risk, and Injury in North American Wrestling, 1880 to 1914.- Part 2 The NFL: Politics, Injury and American National Identity’.- 5 Inflaming the Civic Temper: Progress, Violence, and Concussion in Early American Football.- 6 A Problem That Cries Out For Standards: Football Helmets, Conceptions of Risk, and the National Commission on Product Safety, 1961-1970.- 7 Lights Out: Concussion Research, the National Football League, and Employer Duty of Care.- 8 Race and Injury in American Football.- Part 3 Sporting Females, Sexuality and the Politics of Injury.- 9 Injury at the Extreme: Alison Hargreaves, Mountaineering and Motherhood.- 10 Gendered Bodies, Gendered Injuries.- 11 The Not So Glamorous World of Women’s Wrestling.- 12 Pride, Prejudice and Death: The Emile Griffiths Story.- Part 4 Sport as Transport: Horse, Cycle and Motor Racing and the Politics of Safety.- 13 Runners, Riders and Risk: Safety Issues in the History of Horseracing.- 14 “Dishing out the pain” in professional cycling.- 15 It Was Ironic That He Should Die in Bed: Injury, Death and the Politics of Safety in the History of Motor Racing.- Part 5 Sport, Injury and the Culture of Late Capitalism.- 16 The Death of Jordan McNair: The Inevitability of the Avoidable Life-Threatening Injury.- 17 From Body Snatchers to Brain Banks: The Cadaver as Commodity and the Sports-Concussion “Crisis”.- 18 On the Front Lines: Black Boys and Injury in Basketball.- 19 All Power to Your Elbow? Injury in US Baseball and the Politics of ‘Tommy John Surgery’.- 20 Is Injury “On Brand”? Examining the Contexts of the CrossFit Injury Connection.- 21 ‘This must be done right, so we don’t lose the income’: Medical care and commercial imperatives in mixed martial arts.- 22 Vanguards on The Starting Line: Race, Work, and Dissent in Sport Dystopian films from Rollerball to The Hunger Games.- Part 6: Sport and Injury – Case Studies.- 23 Injury and Olympics Politics, 1896-1988.- 24 Fits and Starts:  Re-examining the Mystery of Brazil’s Ronaldo and the Rumours Swirling Around his Controversial Role in the World Cup final of 1998.- 25 The Cricket Pitch as ‘Unsafe Workplace’: Sports Culture and the Death of Phillip Hughes.- 26 Muhammad Ali, Sport Celebrity and Perceptions of Parkinson’s Disease.- 27 ‘Snipers Stop Play’: The Israeli Defence Force and the Shooting of Palestinian Footballers.- Part 7 Sport, Harm and the Politics of Wellbeing.- 28 The politics of safeguarding and protecting children in sport in England.- 29 Sidelined: Boys, Sport, and Depression.- 30 Injuries in Schools’ Rugby: Occasional Niggles and Scrapes?.

This book looks historically at the harm that has been inflicted in the practice of sport and at some of the issues, debates and controversies that have arisen as a result. Written by experts in history, sociology, sport journalism and public health, the book considers sport and injury in relation to matters of social class; gender; ethnicity and race; sexuality; political ideology and national identity; health and wellbeing; childhood; animal rights; and popular culture. These matters are, in turn, variously related to a range of sports, including ancient, pre- and early industrial sports; American football; boxing; wrestling and other combat sports; mountaineering; horseracing; cycling; motor racing; rugby football; cricket; association football; baseball; basketball; Crossfit; ice hockey; Olympic sports; Mixed Martial Arts; and sport in an imagined dystopian future.

​“This book offers an impressive and thoughtful collection of essays written by top scholars each interrogating the different ways in which diverse sporting cultures produce athlete pain, injury, and bodily damage. As such, this collection is essential reading for those interested in understanding how sport is not simply about the celebration of achievement and victory, but also about the social, material, and political agony of suffering and trauma.” (Mary G. McDonald, Professor and Homer C. Rice Chair of Sport and Society, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA)“As an increasing number of sports are subjected to medical and legal scrutiny for their short- and long-term outcomes, this timely volume rams home the point that sports might not be so good for players afterall. Offering an impressive spread of pain-injury snapshots across the social sciences, public health and social policy disciplines, it proves what we have long suspected – pain and injury in sport do not only result from the nature of the game, but from the ways that sports are organized, managed and policed. In questioning the institutional innocence of sport, the volume crosses the explanatory bridge from sport studies to victimology and underlines the complexity of the central concept of consent in sports harm.” (Kevin Young, Professor of Sociology, University of Calgary, Canada)“This is an essential guide to some of the most important questions facing sport today. It brings together a wide range of experts who interrogate harm, injury and physical abuse in sport from a variety of insightful perspectives. This is a groundbreaking and timely book that should be on the shelves of every sports historian, sociologist and policy-maker.” (Tony Collins, Emeritus Professor of History, De Montfort University, UK)

First interdisciplinary exploration of sporting injury and harm Draws out intersecting issues to do with sporting harm and gender, race, policy, democracy and capitalism Has most relevance in the US, but contains a global spread of chapter authors and highlights a range of international cases