Includes bibliographical references and index.

History and philosophy of sport and physical education -- Sumer, Egypt, China, and Mesoamerica -- Greece -- Rome -- Philosophy, sport, and physical education during the Middle Ages : 900-1400 -- The Renaissance and the Reformation : 1300-1600 -- The age of science and the Enlightenment : 1560-1789 -- Philosophical positions of the body and the development of physical education : contributions of the Germans, Swedes, and Danes in nineteenth-century Europe -- The impact of science and the concept of health on the theoretical and professional development of physical education : 1885-1930 -- The transformation of physical education : 1900-1939 -- Sport in the colonial period -- Changing concepts of the body : an overview of sport and play in nineteenth-century America -- Sport in the twentieth century -- Pioneers and progress : 1896-1936 -- The Cold War Olympics : 1948-1988 -- After the Cold War : 1992-2008

Takes students and scholars on a journey through time to understand the role that history and philosophy have played in shaping the course of sport and physical education in Western and selected non-Western civilizations, from Mesoamerica and Ancient Greece to the 2008 Olympic Games.