Description: Originally published in 1978, From Ritual to Record was one of the first books to recognize the importance of sports as a lens on the fundamental structure of societies. In this reissue, Guttmann emphasizes the many ways that modern sports, dramatically different from the sports of previous eras, have profoundly shaped contemporary life.
Review Quotes: A pioneering work in a field remarkably little touched... For any future writer about the philosophy or the sociology of sport in general, this book will be required reading.--Julian Symons "Times Literary Supplement"