The global geopolitics of sport is being transformed in and by East Asia. Sport in recent decades has been avidly embraced by East Asian nations, with implications both for their image on the international stage and their domestic national identities. The three post-war East Asian Olympic Games, the ‘glittering’ Guangzhou Asian Games in 2010 and the march of Asia into the global sport market illustrate the fact that a new global sports order has emerged.
This collection uniquely discerns the ‘tectonic’ shift of global power in the geopolitical, economic, cultural and social dynamics of sport from West to East. It also reveals ‘that the global empire of commerce’ is similarly shifting eastwards. The chapters, written by leading authorities on East Asia, widens the focus, advances the knowledge and sharpens the appreciation of both global sport and regional current transformation in the making and, in doing so, contributes to an understanding of profound changes in global sport.
This book was originally published as a special issue of The International Journal of the History of Sport.
PART ONE: Introduction 1. The Approaching East Asian Epoch in Global Sport William W. Kelly and J. A. Mangan PART TWO: National Ambitions, Aspirations and Intentions 2. Imperial Singapore – Culture Imperialism and Imperial Control: Athleticism as Ideological Intent J. A. Mangan 3. Singapore: Imperialism and Post-Imperialism, Athleticism, Sport, Nationhood and Nation-Building Peter Horton 4. Japan’s Embrace of Soccer: Mutable Ethnic Players and Flexible Soccer Citizenship in the New East Asian Sports Order William W. Kelly 5. ‘The Grand Mass Gymnastics and Artistic Performance Arirang’ (2002 - 2012): North Korea’s Socialist-Realist Response to Global Sports Spectacles Udo Merkel PART THREE: International Ambitions, Aspirations and Intentions 6. The Guard’s Three Bodies: Linsanity, Celebrity, and National Identity Matthew Tyler Combs and Jeffrey Nathan Wasserstrom 7. Professional Team Sports and the Urbanisation of Desire John D. Kelly 8. Winning is Not Enough: Sport and Politics in East Asia and Beyond Victor D. Cha 9. Global Sports Commodity Chains and Asia’s New Interregional Division of Labour Wolfram Manzenreiter 10. The Olympic Public Sphere: The London and Beijing Opening Ceremonies as Representative of Political Systems Susan Brownell
William W. Kelly is Professor of Anthropology and Sumitomo Professor Japanese Studies at Yale University, USA. He is the author of a dozen articles on sports and Japanese society and editor of Fanning the Flames (2004), This Sporting Life (2007), and The Olympics on East Asia (2011), among other publications. J.A. Mangan, Emeritus Professor, University of Strathclyde, UK; FRHS; FRAI; FRSA; RSL; D. Litt, is founding editor of The International Journal of the History of Sport and the series Sport in the Global Society, author of the globally acclaimed Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School, The Games Ethic and Imperialism and ‘Manufacturing Masculinity’: Making Imperial Manliness, Morality and Militarism and author or editor of some 50 publications on politics, culture, and sport.
