Australia's Asian Sporting Context, 1920s - 30s

Sean Brawley is Associate Professor of History and Associate Dean (Education) at the University of New South Wales, Australia. He is the author of eight books, including The Bondi Lifesaver: History of an Australian Icon; Fighting Words: Competing Voices of the Pacific War; and, most recently, Hollywood’s South Seas and the Pacific War: Searching for Dorothy Lamour.Nick Guoth is a Visiting Fellow in the School of Sociology, College of Arts and Social Sciences at the Australian National University, Canberra.

• 1. Introduction: Australia’s Asian sporting context 2. ‘Despicable and degrading’: Australian – Ceylonese sporting relations 3. ‘Little giants of the ring’: fighting race and making men on the Australia – Philippines boxing circuit, 1919 – 1923 4. A new China: using sport to expose a multi-class race through the 1923 Chinese soccer tour of Australia 5. Oldfield’s XI and the golden bond of empire: the 1927 Australian cricket tour of Singapore and Malaya 6. Second rate Java Jaunters: soccer football, the imaginary grandstand, cultural diplomacy and Australia’s Asian context 7. ‘Lively little visitors’ and ‘peaceful ambassadors’: reading Japanese sporting tours through the Australian press – 1926 to 1935 8. ‘Indian hockey [and football] tricks’: race, magic, wonder and empire in Australian – Indian sporting relations, 1926 – 1938 9. Playing fields