Playing Off the Field : Explorations in the History of Sport

Contents: Foreword. Acknowledgements. Preface. I. Sport, social history, contemporary history: 1. Sports history in India: prospects and problems. 2. The legend of the \'Father of Indian Football\': sport, culture, modernity in Late Colonial Bengal. 3. 1911 in retrospect: a revisionist perspective on a famous Indian sporting victory. 4. \'Where the Twain Shall Ever Meet\': sport and education as cultural bond in Colonial and Post-Colonial India. 5. In search of a football ground in Twentieth Century Urban Bengal. 6. Pakistani Cricket at crossroads: an outsider\'s perspective. II. The academic, the popular and the widening horizon: 7. The academic perceptions and the expanding Literature on Indian Sport. 8. The Genre of Vernacular Soccer Histories. 9. Sport and Subalternity in South Asia. Index.

"The history of sport is only in its infancy in Indian Academica. To establish its credibility as a viable academic discipline has proved something of a struggle for those Indian historians engaged in its research for the past few years. The struggle is overcome elsewhere in the world. To overcome it in India, the teaching of sports history within the broader discipline of history must go hand in hand with serious research. This book, which comprises a collection of essays and book reviews by the author published in national and international journals over the past five years, using sport as a lens, considers some relevant themes of social history, and brings forth some important issues of contemporary history." (jacket)