Sport is the most universal feature of popular culture. It crosses language barriers and slices through national boundaries, attracting both spectators and participants, to a common lingua franca of passions, obsessions and desires.

This book brings to light the connections between sport and culture. It argues that although sport is obviously a source of pleasure, it is also part of the government of everyday life. The creation of a sporting calendar, movements of rational recreation and the development of physical education in the public sector, are read as ways of disciplining and shaping urban-industrial populations. In addition, sport is examined as a principal front of globalization. The sports process draws t