 | A Social History of Tennis in Britain Subjects: Humanities; Sports and Leisure; Recreation and Consumption; Class and Work; Agencies and Institutions; Race and Empire; Gender and Sexuality; States of Mind; Rural and Urban Life; Family and Demography; Crime and Punishment; Health and Welfare; History; Sport and Leisure Studies; Individual Sports; Sport and Exercise ; Hobbies and Pastimes; Social Groups; Wealth and Inequality; Education; Empire at Home; Rational Recreation; Religious Denominations; Concepts of Society; Gender Roles and Stereotypes; Feminism and Women''s Movement; Clubs; Social Conventions and Orthodoxies; Attitudes to Nature; Economic Developments; Working Conditions; Poverty; Regionalism; Communications; National State; Slavery; The British Diaspora; Political Beliefs and Ideologies; Voluntary Societies; Philanthropy; Urbanisation; Mass Society; Life Cycle; Types of Towns and Cities; Homosexuality; Sex; Entertainment; Welfare; Disability; The Urban Environment; British History; Contemporary History 1945-; Social & Cultural History; Sociology of Sport; Sports History; Racket sports; Upper Classes; Middle Classes; Public Schools; Middle Class Education; University; Church of England; Models of Class; Social Mobility; Femininity; Masculinity; Etiquette and Manners; Gentlemen''s Clubs; Environmentalism; Wages; Paternalism; Unemployment; Press ; Tradition; Emancipation; Settler Colonialism; Race Relations; Immigration; United States; Minorities; Welfare Societies; Suburbanisation; Americanization; Primary Education; Secondary Education; New Woman; Social Feminism; Childhood; Working Classes; Unemployed; Workingmen''s Clubs; Resort Towns; London; Factory Towns; Regulations and Disciplines; Desire; Apprenticeship and Training; Rough and Respectable; Conservatism; Armed Forces; Liberalism; Radicalism; Social Radicalism; Urban Structure; Winner of the Lord Aberdare Literary Prize 2015- from the British Society for Sports History. From its advent in the mid-late nineteenth century as a garden-party pastime to its development into a highly commercialised and professionalised high-performance sport, the history of tennis in Britain reflects important themes in Britain's social history. In the first comprehensive and critical account of the history of tennis in Britain, Robert Lake explains how the game's historical roots have shaped its contemporary structure, and how the history of tennis can tell us much about the history of wider British society. Since its emergence as a spare-time diversion for landed elites, the dominant culture in British tennis has been one of amateurism and exclusion, with tennis sitting alongside cricket and golf as a vehicle for the reproduction of middle-class values throughout wider British society in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Consequently, the Lawn Tennis Association has been accused of a failure to promote inclusion or widen participation, despite steadfast efforts to develop talent and improve coaching practices and structures. Robert Lake examines these themes in the context of the global development of tennis and important processes of commercialisation and professional and social development that have shaped both tennis and wider society. The social history of tennis in Britain is a microcosm of late-nineteenth and twentieth-century British social history: sustained class power and class conflict; struggles for female emancipation and racial integration; the decline of empire; and, Britain's shifting relationship with America, continental Europe, and Commonwealth nations. This book is important and fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in the history of sport or British social history. Robert J. Lake is a faculty member in the Department of Sport Science at Douglas College, Canada. His research focuses chiefly on the history and sociology of tennis, particularly related to social class, gender, nationalism, social exclusion, coaching and talent development |
