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Books

Anyone for eel-pulling?

In his survey of the world’s most ludicrous and best-forgotten sports, Edward Brooke-Hitching reveals the extraordinary cruelty and inventiveness of mankind at play

18 July 2015

9:00 AM

18 July 2015

9:00 AM

Fox Tossing, Octopus Wrestling and Other Forgotten Sports Edward Brooke-Hitching

Simon & Schuster, pp.258, £12.99, ISBN: 9781471148989

Scholarship for its own sake has rather gone out of fashion, although I’m sure Spectator readers would be the last people to worry about that. But what of scholarship for barely any sake at all? A book like this, the result of enormously diligent library ferreting, doesn’t have any pressing reason to exist, but I am glad it does.

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