Sport and Apartheid South Africa

As athletes of today grapple with how to use their public platforms to fight for activist causes, Sport and Apartheid South Africa: Histories of Politics, Power, and Protest examines a set of longer histories of sport, ‘race’, and activism. The book seeks to uncover and understand new historical aspects of apartheid and sport, challenge myths, and rethink dominant narratives. It examines the subject of racially segregated sport in South Africa from national and transnational perspectives, asking questions about how athletes and administrators, transnational anti-apartheid groups and activists, and politicians around the world interpreted and internalized racial segregation in South Africa. By connecting the local to the global, this book illuminates the ways in which apartheid sport animated national and international debates, ranging from racism and human rights to Cold War politics and post-colonialism.


Sport and Apartheid South Africa is a significant new contribution to the study of race and politics in sport and will be a great resource for academics, researchers, and advanced students of History, Politics, International Relations, Sociology, and Political Geography.

The chapters in this book were originally published in The International Journal of the History of Sport.