This Sporting Life
Sport and Liberty in England, 1760-1960
Robert Colls
Reviews and Awards
"Robert Colls's exploration of sport in England between 1760 and 1960 is like no sporting history I have ever read... Eccentric, dazzlingly learned and often very funny... Colls is a historian of matchless insight and admirably democratic range." -- Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times
"This Sporting Life displays exhausting quantities of erudition, sometimes within a single sentence. The prose is lively even in the footnotesâ there are jewels on every pageâ There is more life in these pages than can be explained, or needs to be." -- Simon Kuper, Financial Times
"Superb... This is much more than a history of sport; it is really an alternative history of England itself... This book is full of moments that pull you up short and make you think. -- Alex Massie, The Spectator
"Colls has combined painstaking research with elegant prose to produce a thoroughly readable history of British sports and pastimes over two hundred years. In doing so he has breathed new life into an often-neglected corner of British history." -- Emma Griffin, Literary Review
"[A] quirky and strikingly original social history of England through its sports, games and pastimesâ beautifully and inventively expressed, witty and bawdy in placesâ perhaps the most impressive element of This Sporting Life is its light touch, the way it never quite loses sight of the fact that at its heart, sport is fun." -- Jonathan Liew, New Statesman
"This is both a vivid and thought-provoking readâ I would recommend the book to anyone skeptical of the historical significance of sport." -- Lincoln Allison, Critic
"This fascinating and engagingly written book is about much more than sport: customs, tradition, place, identity, national myths as well as national stories. Colls has written the best book I have read on George Orwell, and this book too is definitive." -- Jason Cowley, Editor of the New Statesman
"The two most successful and positive exports from this country are the English language and organized sport. The profound influence of sport has been grievously unacknowledged. In his new book, Robert Colls puts this right by bringing its history to life and linking it quite brilliantly with common notions of liberty, patriotism, and belonging. He also shows the part modern sport played in replacing the many textures of our traditional patterns of social life. It's vivid, passionate, and goes to the heart of a subject which in so many ways is now the dominating conversation in peoples' lives." -- Melvyn Bragg, Broadcaster
"This is a wonderful book. It is engrossing,Âbeautifully written, overflowing with insight into England and English ideas of liberty as manifest through sport. It is a history of sport unlike any other and is nothing short of exhilarating." -- Paul Rouse, School of History, University College Dublin
"Sparkling and scholarly, Robert Colls' new history of sport is expertly set within the wider context of English society and culture. Abounding with fresh insights, sport is celebrated and explained from Regency prize-fights to Wembley Cup Finals; vibrantly written, full of dramatic incidents and exceptional individuals." -- Richard Holt, author of Sport and the British: A Modern History
