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Conor Heffernan is Lecturer in the Sociology of Sport at Ulster University, UK, and Chair of the British Society of Sports History. The author of A History of Physical Culture in Ireland, The History of Physical Culture and Indian Club Swinging and the Birth of Global Fitness, Conor has published over fifty peer-reviewed articles and runs a history of fitness website, ‘Physical Culture Study’.
A must-read book for anyone interested in how the modern fitness industry first spread globally during the nineteenth century. Well written, drawing on a prodigious amount of research, Conor Heffernan impressively analyses just how physical culture practices first critically clustered around a clear set of ideas, movements, products and body ideals. * Dr Mike Huggins Emeritus Professor of Cultural History University of Cumbria, UK * Conor Heffernan takes us into a 19th century world where, every day, elite Swedish gymnasts, drilled Indian soldiers, and loose-limbed American university athletes all shared the same physical exercises as hundreds of thousands of London School Board kids. Just as weight-lifting and yoga, diet and calisthenics, posture and movement, inhabit our lives, so they inhabited theirs. Not only a history of the search for the perfect body, it is a history of the search for control. Beautifully written, it’s part of who we are. * Robert Colls, Professor Emeritus, De Montfort University, UK *
