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La dictature qu’a imposé Fulgencio Batista à Cuba de 1952 à 1958 correspond à la catégorie bien particulière des « régimes sultaniques » si l’on suit la typologie proposée par le politiste Juan Linz. Dénués de toute idéologie mobilisatrice, ceux-ci servent avant tout les intérêts personnels du chef de l’État et de son clan. Certains de leurs traits saillants, comme le haut degré de corruption, le népotisme et le manque de professionnalisme, se dégagent clairement de l’analyse des activités de la Comisión nacional de deportes (CND) dirigée par le beau-frère de Batista. Plus près en cela d’un système autoritaire « classique », le clan au pouvoir a tenté de contrôler le mouvement sportif associatif et même de prendre en possession le Comité olympique cubain. La manière dont le mouvement sportif s’est opposé à ces tentatives témoigne de la subsistance d’une société civile intacte. Quant aux grands spectacles sportifs organisés et financés par la CND, ils n’ont guère apporté de la légitimité au gouvernement, étant trop marqués par la corruption et le dilettantisme répandus dans l’appareil d’État. Notre article reconstitue les fonctions et dysfonctionnements de la politique sportive sous Batista en s’appuyant sur de nombreux documents d’archives et des périodiques cubains, et en mettant à l’épreuve le concept de Juan Linz.

Dans le schème d’une histoire globale, cet article propose d’étudier la vie et la carrière sportive du marathonien Abebe Bikila au regard des transformations socio-culturelles de la décennie soixante. Pour ce faire, l’étude emprunte à un vaste panel de sources secondaires, à la presse d’époque, ainsi qu’aux archives du Comité international olympique. Elle s’articule autour de trois échelles d’analyse: l’individu et son réseau; les nations et leurs identités; l’Olympisme et la mondialisation. L’Ethiopien apparaît alors comme le symbole d’un nouvel ordre olympique, porté par la densification des échanges/transferts culturels, l’affirmation d’identités nationales renouvelées et l’internationalisation du CIO. À ce titre, l’histoire d’Abebe Bikila – athlète et témoin de son temps – est aussi celle d’une globalisation culturelle accélérée à l’aube du Second XX^e siècle.

In Alberta, Canada during the 1960s and early 1970s the popularity of recreational paddling expanded considerably. The reasons for this were varied, including wider demographic and economic shifts that produced a population that was both able, with time and the means, and eager to engage in these activities. But at the same time there was a notable change in the material reality of the sport brought on by the development of new construction techniques and materials. The goal of this article is to investigate the changing nature of recreational paddling in the 1960s and 70s with a focus on the influence that changing materials and construction methods had on these processes. Developed for other commercial purposes, fiberglass provided paddlers in Alberta with a means of constructing more robust canoes cheaply, quickly, and with a great deal of customization. To facilitate this construction, paddlers came together to share knowledge, materials, designs, and labor. In turn, these boatbuilding workshops became the nucleus of a budding and ultimately vibrant paddling community in the province. Moreover, the increased durability and design adaptability allowed paddlers to push the limits of the sport and successively redesign and further specialize the boats allowing for even greater skill development.

This article offers a consideration of physical activity within the contexts of social movement philosophies, decision making, strategies, and tactics through an examination of the 1986 Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament. Drawing from interviews with twenty activists on the Great Peace March, the author argues that physicality and endurance actions—literally, but also symbolically—signify particular meanings of movement for social movements, such as persistence, focus, and determination, to stretch sociopolitical limits and boundaries. Participants endeavor to accomplish difficult physical challenges and maintain the solidarity of their communities to analogize the coming into existence of equally extraordinary visions of social or political transformation. Physical and symbolic expressions of what the author terms “endurance activism” sustained the marchers’ vision of community and the survival of their organization. The article encourages sport historians to use a wider framework to interpret the links between physical activity, social activism, and oppositional movements.

On July 27, 1859, “Canada” Kate Clark met two Americans, Nellie Stem and Mary Dwyer, for a pair of prize fights in Fort Erie, Canada West. Beginning their adventure in Buffalo, New York, they rowed their way across the Niagara River to the fighting grounds in the British colony. Like pugilists before them, they stripped to the waist to limit potential grappling in battle. Both the journey and pre-fight fight preparations were tried and true components of mid-nineteenth century prize fighting. Although the press, and later historians, overwhelmingly associated such performances with male combatants, women were indeed active in Canadian pugilistic circles, settling scores, testing their mettle, and displaying their fistic abilities both pre- and post-Confederation. In this article, we begin to untangle the various threads of female pugilism, situating these athletes and performers within the broader literature on both boxing and women's sport in Canada. By examining media reports of female boxers—both in sparring and prize fighting—we hope to provide a historiographic foundation for further discussions of early female pugilism, highlighting the various ways these women upheld and challenged the notion of the “new woman” in Canada.

Zainichi Koreans are a unique political product of the Korean Peninsula. They were taken to Japan under the Japanese occupation (1910–45) of Korea and stayed there without becoming naturalized Japanese citizens. Baseball was a mechanism for the children of Zainichi Koreans, who were oppressed on Japanese soil, to overcome the discrimination they were experiencing in their daily lives and assimilate into Japanese society. From 1956 to 1970, South Korean newspapers invited Zainichi Korean children playing baseball to their home country for regular national baseball exchanges. This event provided nourishment for the growth of Korean baseball and served as the only cultural bridge for Zainichi Korean children to experience and understand their motherland, which they had previously only imagined.