Sport

The modern Olympic Games are an international phenomenon, often criticised for their controlling commercialism. However, as Mihir Bose explains, they owe their origins to a  celebrated novel set in an English public school.

The ancient Greek Olympics were just as enmeshed in international politics, national rivalries and commercial pressures as their modern counterpart, says David Gribble.

London 2012 will be the biggest television spectacle ever. Taylor Downing reflects on the extraordinary links between the Olympics and the moving picture throughout their histories.

As London gears up for the start of the Olympics next month, David Runciman compares the 2012 games with the London Olympics of 1908 and 1948 to see what they reveal about the changing relationship between politics and sport over the last century.

Mihir Bose asks why sport has become so central to modern culture.

Ed Smith considers contingency, a factor central to both sport and history.

Viv Saunders reveals how sport and society are intertwined.

Queen Anne ordered a racecourse to be built on Ascot Heath in 1711. It was officially opened on August 11th.

Richard Cavendish traces the evolution of today's 'mega-bucks' sports industry back to a small competition in Scotland in the mid-19th Century.

The modern Olympic movement was inspired by the classical world. But, says Richard Bosworth, when the Italian capital hosted the Games in 1960, the organisers had to offer an image of the city that also took account of its Christian, Renaissance and Fascist pasts.

Mike Marqusee revisits S.M. Toyne’s article, The Early History of Cricket, on the origins and growth of the game, first published in History Today in June 1955.

Football became a potent expression of Algeria’s struggle for independence, never more so than during the dramatic events that preceded the 1958 World Cup, as Martin Evans explains.

Objects loaded with the history of the Troubles are scattered around Belfast, but sensitivity means the debate about how and where to exhibit them rumbles on, says James Morrison.