This chapter examines the development of sport in one of the most significant regions in its history. It explains the institutional reasons why a truly comparative history of the continent is still lacking and presents and critiques fruitful new avenues that might lead to a more integrated picture. Its principle plaidoyer is for greater recognition of sports of non-British origin, as well as the polygenetic spread of British sports, especially in English-language scholarship. It also urges a cautious reconsideration of political and ideological narratives (of the Fascist era in particular), which have tended to reduce complex historical reality to moral truths. While the chapter places a special emphasis on the first half of the twentieth century, it outlines the three key areas of sport’s development after 1945: affluence in the West, the Cold War, and European integration. Here, too, the chapter calls on future accounts to strive for greater complexity.
M. Crotty, N.J. Diamant, M. Edele, The Politics of Veteran Benefits in the Twentieth Century. A Comparative History
