This overview of the history of the Sokol, the Czech nationalist gymnastic organization, from its founding in 1862 until the outbreak of World War I emphasizes its role in articulating national values and facilitating mass mobilization in the political context of the multinational Habsburg state. By including background on the German Turnverein , this study goes beyond the Czech context to explore the intersection of gymnastics and mass nationalism in Central Europe.

Originally published in 1977, this book analyses the Neo-Slav movement using an exceptionally wide range of Czech primary sources. It analyses the conditions in the Czech lands of the Habsburg Empire which gave rise to Neo-Slavism, traces the development of the movement, and examines the responses it induced amongst other Slav peoples.

Provincializing the Worldly Citizen examines travel to Czechoslovakia by Yugoslav educators and students in the 1920s and 1930s in the context of educational modernization and national identity formation. It argues that «Slavic Cosmopolitanism» was an important element in educating the Yugoslav child and in the development of schooling practices in Yugoslavia. The book examines how notions of «Slavicness» circulated and were related to visions of the ideal Yugoslav, linking together these two concerns - not merely to cross-fertilize Slavic studies, the history of education, and the field of comparative education but as part of an effort to develop new intellectual strategies for transnational, cross-cultural scholarship. To this end, it examines Yugoslav student and teacher travel as an entry point to analyzing the regulative ideals that were inscribed in the Yugoslav child as a future citizen. From the broadest perspective, the book offers ways of thinking about the functions of travel and schooling by exposing the fabricated categories of ethnicity and nation as they become worked into cultural and pedagogical ideals. In specific terms, it is an examination of how interwar Yugoslav schools produced worldly minded Yugoslavs - not just through the official curriculum but across a wide range of cultural practices.

This groundbreaking anthology provides a transnational view of the use of physical culture practices - to strengthen, discipline, and reimagine the human body. Exploring theses of colonialism, gender disparities, and race relations, this international examination of bodily practices is a must read for all sport historians and those interested in physical training and its meanings. Erudite, solid, enlightening, this is a truly valuable book for our field.

A contemporary analysis of the people, cultures, and society within the regions that make up Eastern Europe. Eastern Europe: An Introduction to the People, Lands, and Culture sheds light on modern-day life in the 16 nations comprising Eastern Europe. Going beyond the history and politics already well documented in other works, this unique three-volume series explores the social and cultural aspects of a region often ignored in books and curricula on Western civilization. The volumes are organized by geographic proximity and commonality in historical development, allowing the countries to be both studied individually and juxtaposed against others in the region. The first volume covers the northern tier of states, the second looks at lands that were once part of the Hapsburg empire, and the third examines the Balkan states. Each chapter profiles a single country—its geography, history, political development, economy, and culture—and gives readers a glimpse of the challenges that lie ahead. Vignettes on various topics of interest illuminate the unique character of each country.