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Using the example of cross-country running in France between 1907 and 1924, this article seeks to analyze the dynamics of a unique emotional community wherein the socialization of athletes occurs through the experience of exertion. The natural pleasures of running cross-country in the winter represent an essential rite of passage for neophytes. Once thusly inducted, beginners learn to interpret their sensations thanks to the wise advice of older team members—who pace the group, correct technical imperfections, and restrain over-eager newcomers. This clan-like functioning was nevertheless threatened by the growing media coverage of cross-country promoted by the French Athletics Federation in the 1920s.

In 1930, during the French rugby championship, a player named Taillantou brutally tackled an opponent who died as a result. This incident, which came at a critical moment in the history of rugby, was an important first step towards the birth of sports law in France. Magistrates and jurists dealing with the case tried to answer a seemingly simple question: should the right to violence be recognized in sport, or on the contrary, should any injury or death resulting from a sporting act be answerable to the law? The micro-analytical approach adopted here allows us to measure the extent to which the law, by defining the worth of a sporting rule, has contributed to making sport a social activity in its own right.

This article examines the evolution of rugby union in Argentina under the government of Juan D. Perón (1946–1955). While it acknowledges the government's intention to politicize sporting and recreational practices, this article also seeks to shed light onto how rugby was able to benefit from Peronist policies. On the one hand, the direct involvement of the State in international competitions allowed Argentine rugby players to compete against top-level foreign teams for the first time. On the other hand, rugby marked a unique attempt at popularizing an elite sport to make it accessible to working-class children, thanks to the ideologically charged “Eva Perón Games”.

The article focuses on the creation and activity of the UNFP, the union established by professional French football players to obtain contractual freedom. In an effort to understand the reasons behind their mobilisation, this article attempts to reconcile two often dissociated aspects: the founding of a representative body and the actions carried out in its name. It thus shows that the success of this mobilisation did not derive solely from the players' ability to organize themselves to achieve their specific demands, but from an overall situation which led different groups (journalists and public authorities in particular) to support, for varying reasons, the existence and activity of the UNFP.

The philatelic press, which appeared in the mid-19th century in Great Britain, was a very niche sphere of publication that asserted its ostensible incompatibility with any ideology. In reality, however, a thorough reading reveals that some philatelic newspapers reproduced, disseminated, and enriched the great ideological debates of their times, taking the sides of European imperialism and colonialism, racism, and even anti-Semitism. While such periodicals represented a small minority of the philatelic press, it is nevertheless true that their study will contribute to a better understanding of the circulation of ideologies, allowing for research to relativize, or, on the contrary, accentuate certain features of contemporary European societies.

This article examines advertisers' efforts to adapt to the new patterns of urban mobility that developed in Shanghai during the Republic (1912–49). Relying on various untapped sources (municipal archives, newspapers, street photographs), this article focuses on three major forms of mobile advertising —street cars, rickshaws, and processions—to elucidate the contradictory reactions that they aroused. In this crowded and politically fragmented metropolis, their diverging trajectories reflected increased competition for urban space, the coexistence of different advertising cultures, and conflicting approaches to unemployment and poverty during the Great Depression.

Prior to 1914, marksmanship was widely taught in schools, even if nowadays it is largely absent from school curricula. As a result of supportive policies, the number of school-based and recreational shooting clubs hosted by teachers increased from 1880s onwards, and especially after 1905. There were nearly 2,000 such clubs in 1914. While this number subsequently decreased, shooting clubs did not disappear. In this way, military culture continued to spread throughout the general population. However, such clubs should not be caricatured, given that they also offered new forms of recreation and sociability. Examining the phenomenon of marksmanship classes and clubs also puts the idea of “Revanchism” into perspective and sheds light on school demilitarization during the interwar period.

Among the organizations fighting for the recognition of conscientious objection in France, Service Civil International stood out due to its belief in the creation of an alternative civil service that could replace military service for dissenters. SCI hoped to lead by example: it created international workcamps and emergency relief operations to illustrate the usefulness of alternative service. The organization thus found itself entrusted with managing the first conscientious objectors upon their release from prison, even before the legal recognition of this alternative in France. Fighting alongside conscientious objectors, SCI emerged as one of the leading figures in the struggle for the recognition of the fundamental human right to object.

“Do as railwaymen's wives do” was both a statement and a piece of advice given to married women who wished to continue working during the interwar period. After verifying the accuracy of this statement, this article will explore its application with respect to the lives of the urban working class, and the extent to which they suffered or managed to mitigate male domination. Comparison suggests that male control was more entrenched in middle-class households than in working-class households for two reasons: middle-class men had an inheritance to preserve (and increase), and middle-class women had to contribute to that goal by fostering social networks and maintaining social standing.