Featured Release
Australian History
Sport
The Australian Wrestling TraditionTwo unarmed men face each other across a circular arena ready to do battle in the world oldest sport. They are fighting for honour, love, country or a myriad other reasons. It is a sport that has survived from long before the Ancient Greeks right through to the modern Olympics.
Australian wrestler and coach Gavin Dickson knows the sport from inside and outside the ring. He follows the grapplers down the centuries and in every corner of the globe in a fascinating historical study of a subject written about for the first time from an Australian viewpoint.
His enthralling account ranges over indigenous wrestling, the colonial era, unarmed combat in Europe, the Americas and the Orient, the ancient Egyptians and even the odd world of professional wrestling tailored for television. He takes us inside the world of Olympic wrestling and the numerous martial arts practiced in Australia long before the white man brought his version of the sport.
Gavin writes as much for the general public as for wrestling enthusiasts in a story sure to change perceptions of a long ignored, yet fascinating sporting tradition.