A emergência histórica do lazer revisitada

Abstract

The article analyzes critically the more usual conclusions about the history of leisure, a subject that articulates itself with the political economy and the history of contemporary capitalism. Through an extensive review, the article questions the widely disseminated idea that 19th century England would have been the time and place for an acute and unprecedented transformation in the ways to organize social times and to structure recreations. Despite the changes that were taking place in those instances in that context, the article argues that old recreations persisted and that transformations in this sphere were slow and gradual, in addition to being socially and regionally concentrated. Besides, analogous transformations were also registered, at the same time, outside England. The emphasis on the supposed English singularity, therefore, besides being debatable and inadequate, given that it depended on events unfolded elsewhere, is the product of a nationalist and ethnocentric bias.