Book review of "The Paralympic Games Explained" by Ian Brittain. London, Routeledge, 2010. ISBN 978-0-415-4758-4

[Extract] Ian Brittain's motivation in writing this text was to offer informed information and data about the Paralympic Games that might precipitate further research in this 'fascinating area of sport' (p. 1 ) : it must be said that he has certainly achieved this ambition . Indeed, this text, which emerged from his doctoral research, caps a prodigious decade of research and professional engagement in the administration, management and coordination of teams and events involving elite athletes with disabilities.\ud \ud Ian Brittain's doctoral research comprised both an 'emancipatory' methodology and a personal ambition. In this text, he maintains this crusade and has effectively shifted the perception and the guiding philosophy to the consideration of disability and specifically to the discussion of athletes with disabilities away from the previously dominant medical discourse to the more holistic and enabling social discourse. In sport, the previous discourse privileged an 'ableism-based' (p. 56) perception of disability and dominated the thinking underpinning the reasons and justification for the participation of people with disabilities in active leisure, recreation, competitive sport and, of course, physical education