Strong, Beautiful and Modern
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Charlotte Macdonald
About this book
In the late 1930s and early 1940s, a wave of state-sponsored “national fitness” programs swept Britain and its former settler colonies, laying the foundations for the twentieth century’s obsession with fitness. In Strong, Beautiful and Modern, Charlotte Macdonald shows how governments encouraged citizens to be healthier and more active and thereby reinforced the cultural ties of the Empire. Alongside these state-sponsored efforts was a growing emphasis from business, the medical establishment, and popular culture on the importance of having “a better body.” At a time when government concern over public health issues such as obesity is once again on the rise, Macdonald offers valuable lessons as to why the first national fitness drive was ultimately a failure. Drawing on extensive research, Strong, Beautiful and Modern is a lively investigation into the way people and their governments think about health and well-being, and how historical views have shaped our modern life.
Author / Editor information
Reviews
In Strong, Beautiful and Modern, Charlotte Macdonald provides an insightful corrective to previous accounts that have largely focused on domestic developments and writes eloquently about the ideologies of the body. An impressive feat of comparative scholarship.
Tony Collins, International Centre for Sports History and Culture, De Montfort University, Leicester:
Strong, Beautiful and Modern is an outstanding book: fresh, original and panoramic.
Topics
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Front Matter
1 -
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Contents
5 -
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Preface and Acknowledgements
7 -
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Introduction
10 -
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Movement is Life
35 -
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Leisure and Democracy
70 -
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Education or Health?
99 -
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Fitness for War and a Changed World
127 -
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Healthy Bodies, States and Modernity
151 -
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Abbreviations
179 -
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List of Illustrations
180 -
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Endnotes
181 -
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Bibliography
211 -
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Index
231
