As Britain's great power status came to be increasingly challenged in
the decades before the First World War, one by-product of the resultant
uncertainty was the weakening of the Victorian, middle-class consensus
of what constituted ideal manhood. Britain's empire was not only the
source of wealth and power, but it simultaneously provided alternative
models of masculinity and nationhood. Consequently, the empire and the
commonwealth played an important role in defining imperial gender
relations in both Britain and in the colonies and dominions. May the
Best Man Win investigates the continual re-assessment and reassertion of
various masculine ideals associated with sport in the British empire
between 1880 and 1935.