Sport, physical exercise and the body in modern France

Abstract

This is a review article, which discusses four recent volumes on the subject of sport, physical exercise and the body in France. Of the four books considered in this review, those by Robert W. Lewis and Keith Rathbone most obviously explore processes of politicization, pushing the analysis into the middle decades of the twentieth century. The more synthetic works of Bernard Andrieu and Georges Vigarello take us beyond conventional histories of sport altogether. Taking their cues from the challenges of the present as much as from the past, the authors, albeit in very different ways, linger on the problem of the medicalization of physical activity, sporting and otherwise, and on what one might call embodied subjectivity. Ultimately, they offer reflections on our quest for ‘wellness’.

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