The Culture of Sports

In conversation with Orlando Patterson, the editors of this special issue reflected and speculated on the nature of the historical sociologist's task and challenge. We agreed that any historical sociology concentrated upon particular events or single sports, but overlooking comparative cultural and social contexts, was narrow and over-focused. Recalling early contributions, Patterson notes how in cricket in the Caribbean there could be found an “intense distillation of every kind of problem and emotional baggage” carried by a society at a particular socio-historical moment. Patterson advocates the dual focus upon time/place and socio-cultural historical influence that is at the heart of the historical sociologist's enterprise; and that shows how cricket, for instance, is both constituted by the legacies of a specific historical past, and constituting of a potentially different future.