Matthew P. Llewellyn – författare

The transnational anti-apartheid sport boycott of South Africa represented the most prominent, extended, and controversial anti-racism campaign in the history of sport. Spearheaded by prominent British religious and anti-colonial figures and exiled South Africans, emboldened by communist and Global South support, and legitimised by supranational political bodies such as the United Nations, the Organisation of African Unity, and the Commonwealth, the sport boycott helped propel anti-apartheid out of relative obscurity and struck at the very heart of a cultural practice that served an explicitly ideological function in Afrikaner society.Britain held a dichotomous, even paradoxical, role as both prosecutor and defender of white South Africa. This book utilises sport as a critical lens for understanding the dynamics and dichotomies of British attitudes towards the apartheid regime. Debates over whether to continue or to cut sporting links with apartheid South Africa proved bitterly divisive. The considerable weight the subject carried and the degree to which it saturated British political and social discourse for four decades speaks to its impact and importance. British Sporting Relations with Apartheid South Africa represents the first archival-based, historical examination of Britain's sporting relations with South Africa throughout the apartheid era, 1948-1994. Situating the analysis within the shifting multiracial and multicultural landscapes of postcolonial Britain and within global political, cultural, sporting, and ideological debates, the authors trace the origins and evolution of the transnational sport boycott, and examine what inspired Britons to energise anti-apartheid sport campaigns and, in contrast, what drove many others to vehemently oppose them at every turn.

For decades, amateurism defined the ideals undergirding the Olympic movement. No more. Today's Games present athletes who enjoy open corporate sponsorship and unabashedly compete for lucrative commercial endorsements.  Matthew P. Llewellyn and John Gleaves analyze how this astonishing transformation took place. Drawing on Olympic archives and a wealth of research across media, the authors examine how an elite--white, wealthy, often Anglo-Saxon--controlled and shaped an enormously powerful myth of amateurism. The myth assumed an air of naturalness that made it seem unassailable and, not incidentally, served those in power. Llewellyn and Gleaves trace professionalism's inroads into the Olympics from tragic figures like Jim Thorpe through the shamateur era of under-the-table cash and state-supported athletes. As they show, the increasing acceptability of professionals went hand-in-hand with the Games becoming a for-profit international spectacle. Yet the myth of amateurism's purity remained a potent force, influencing how people around the globe imagined and understood sport.  Timely and vivid with details, The Rise and Fall of Olympic Amateurism is the first book-length examination of the movement's foundational ideal.

For decades, amateurism defined the ideals undergirding the Olympic movement. No more. Today's Games present athletes who enjoy open corporate sponsorship and unabashedly compete for lucrative commercial endorsements.  Matthew P. Llewellyn and John Gleaves analyze how this astonishing transformation took place. Drawing on Olympic archives and a wealth of research across media, the authors examine how an elite--white, wealthy, often Anglo-Saxon--controlled and shaped an enormously powerful myth of amateurism. The myth assumed an air of naturalness that made it seem unassailable and, not incidentally, served those in power. Llewellyn and Gleaves trace professionalism's inroads into the Olympics from tragic figures like Jim Thorpe through the shamateur era of under-the-table cash and state-supported athletes. As they show, the increasing acceptability of professionals went hand-in-hand with the Games becoming a for-profit international spectacle. Yet the myth of amateurism's purity remained a potent force, influencing how people around the globe imagined and understood sport.  Timely and vivid with details, The Rise and Fall of Olympic Amateurism is the first book-length examination of the movement's foundational ideal.

As athletes of today grapple with how to use their public platforms to fight for activist causes, Sport and Apartheid South Africa: Histories of Politics, Power, and Protest examines a set of longer histories of sport, ‘race’, and activism. The book seeks to uncover and understand new historical aspects of apartheid and sport, challenge myths, and rethink dominant narratives. It examines the subject of racially segregated sport in South Africa from national and transnational perspectives, asking questions about how athletes and administrators, transnational anti-apartheid groups and activists, and politicians around the world interpreted and internalized racial segregation in South Africa. By connecting the local to the global, this book illuminates the ways in which apartheid sport animated national and international debates, ranging from racism and human rights to Cold War politics and post-colonialism.Sport and Apartheid South Africa is a significant new contribution to the study of race and politics in sport and will be a great resource for academics, researchers, and advanced students of History, Politics, International Relations, Sociology, and Political Geography. The chapters in this book were originally published in The International Journal of the History of Sport.