New Books In European Studies

Scholars have pointed to various historical ingredients they see as necessary for the development of modern sport: political changes that allowed people to form associations, the rise of competitive capitalism, an emphasis on calculation and measurement, the advance of secularization. But this attention to economic, social, and political factors has missed one important piece. For games to have become modern, participants first had to think like moderns. The peasant who had once celebrated seasonal festivals with some village game had to become an individual player–someone who wanted to beat his opponents, show off his prowess, and bask in the cheers. Historian Peter Hansen makes this point in his study of mountain climbing, The Summits of Modern Man: Mountaineering after the Enlightenment (Harvard University Press, 2013). Prior to the 1700s, mountain peaks had been the preserve of gods and kings, while their crags and caves had been the hiding places of demons and spirits. Even the miners and shepherds