ABSTRACT
In this chapter the author provides an overview of the social history paradigm in sport history before examining in more detail the content of the cultural paradigm. As the history of sport emerged as a new area of study in the 1970s, many practitioners claimed allegiance to the broader discipline of social history and its emphasis on social totalities and the lives of ordinary people. Modernisation is a perfect example of a concept in sport history falling from favour on political and ideological rather than scientific grounds. Modernisation thrived in the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s of postwar America amid increasing economic prosperity and suburban growth. The evidence presented here, then, is that the appearance and disappearance of key concepts in sport history reflects ideological and political perspectives. Far from threatening history, the ethical injunctions in postmodernist history will make the discipline more relevant to contemporary needs and further highlight the progress under the culture paradigm.
