Putney, Clifford. Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880ø1920. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. x + 300 pp. Introduction, illustrations, notes, and index. $45.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-674-00634-8; $17.95 (paper), ISBN 0-674-01125-2.

     The author covers some familiar ground for sport historians; but does so deftly. For those not familiar with the developments in the social history of sport, his treatment of a vast array of primary sources will prove enlightening. Putney's analysis provides fresh insights into the nature of religious and social reform during the Progressive Era, as Protestants eschewed the passive, contemplative, and perceptively feminine forms of Victorian worship for a more active, aggressive, and masculine version. In so doing they discarded the dualism of the past, merging physicality and spirituality. The body became both a temple and a "tool for good." Sport became a vehicle for proselytism and a means of conversion.

     Putney incorporates a variety of Protestant denominations in his nuanced study but concentrates largely on the more liberal New England sects. Historians of religion will surely recognize the familiar activities of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Dwight L. Moody, and Josiah Strong, whose theological pronouncements found some agreement with the play theory of psychologist G. Stanley Hall. The latter's recapitulation theory suggested that forms of play represented civilizational stages and that physical training might strengthen willpower. Such concepts offered the possibility of advancement through education and moral salvation via wholesome forms of recreation. The author provides significant coverage of the most influential figures in the movement, including Hall's friend and disciple, Luther Gulick, who assumed a major role in the development of body, mind, and spirit as a leader of the YMCA, the Playground Association of America, and as an educator in the New York public schools. The YMCA created both basketball and volleyball during the 1890s to attract and hold young men. Under the auspices of John R. Mott, the YMCA assumed international proselytizing dimensions. The most visible model of the strenuous life, Theodore Roosevelt, also proved one of its most ardent spokesmen.