The Culture of Sports ORLANDO PATTERSON 1 in conversation with ALAN TOMLINSON AND CHRISTOPHER YOUNG Abstract In conversation with Orlando Patterson, the editors of this special issue reflected and speculated on the nature of the historical sociologist’s task and challenge. We agreed that any historical sociology concentrated upon particular events or single sports, but overlooking comparative cultural and social contexts, was narrow and over-focused. Recalling early contributions, Patterson notes how in cricket in the Caribbean there could be found an “intense distillation of every kind of problem and emotional baggage” carried by a society at a particular socio- historical moment. Patterson advocates the dual focus upon time/place and socio- cultural historical influence that is at the heart of the historical sociologist’s enterprise; and that shows how cricket, for instance, is both constituted by the legacies of a specific historical past, and constituting of a potentially different future. ***** Orlando Patterson is an historical and cultural sociologist, and John Cowles Professor of Sociology at Harvard University. His academic interests range across the culture and practice of freedom, the comparative study of slavery and ethno-racial rela- tions, the sociology of under-development, with special reference to the Caribbean, and the problems of gender and familial relations in the black societies of the Americas. He has written five major academic books, most notably Slavery and Social Death (1982), Freedom in the Making of Western Culture (1991), and The Ordeal of Integration (1997). His many awards include the US National Book Award for Freedom in the Making of Western Culture, and the Order of Distinction from the government of Jamaica (1999). Author of three novels, he is a regular contributor to The New York Times, Newsweek, and The New Republic, amongst others. For eight years, he was Special Advisor for social policy and development to Prime Minister Michael Manley of Jamaica. He was a founding member of Cultural Survival, one of the leading advocacy groups for the rights of indigenous peoples, and was for several years a board member of Freedom House, a major civic organization for the promotion of freedom and democracy around the world. He has also found time to write on sport. 1 Orlando Patterson is John Cowles Professor of Sociology at Harvard University, USA, 520 William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge MA, USA 02138, opatters@fas.harvard.edu. The editors’ contact details are footnoted at the bottom of the first page of their opening article in this special issue. Journal of Historical Sociology Vol. 24 No. 4 December 2011 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-6443.2011.01418.x © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.