Richard Holt has written a history of British sport since 1800 in which he attempts to explain how sport has changed and what it has meant to ordinary people. He argues that the way we play reflects not just our lives as citizens of a predominantly urban and industrial world, but also what is unique about British sport. How and why were the British unique in their sports? Holt tries to show that the British were innovators in abandoning traditional, often brutal, sports and in establishing a code of fair play, which spread throughout the late Victorian Empire. He suggests that they were also pioneers in popular sports and in the promotion of organized commercial spectator events, with the accompanying rise of professionalism. The author also discusses modern media coverage of sport, gambling, violence and attitudes towards it, nationalism and the role of sport in sustaining male identity.