ABSTRACT
SPORT HISTORIANS ARE FOREVER making comparisons. Whether lookingat similar or contrasting cases, they compare the achievements and situations of individuals (Jesse Owens and Jackie Robinson), character, styles and demeanours (Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson), groups (working classes and middle classes), collective behaviours (tennis crowds and football crowds), cultures (rugby and rugby league), ideologies (socialist and capitalist), institutions (International Olympic Committee and International Rugby Board), nations (Canada and the United States) and eras (feudal and modern). Comparisons help historians understand the nature of sport, its different functions and meanings, the diversity of factors that shape sport and influence participation, and how individuals and groups make sense of sport and use it for their own ends. Showing differences and similarities constitutes evidence in history and, as a method for distilling commonalities and sharpening distinctions between seemingly similar and parallel events and phenomena, comparison has proved invaluable in helping historians to enhance their understanding and improve their classifications and categories.1 Indeed, the acclaimed scholar of political studies, Samuel Beer, considers comparison one of the more important tools of the historian and ranks it alongside theory as a key mechanism for choosing evidence.2
