Today, most sport historians work within a reconstructionist epistemology that
Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt and Margaret Jacob label practical realism.41 This form of
epistemology acknowledges that a gap exists between words and reality. However, it
does not consider the distance sufficient to abandon the search for truth; rarely are
words arbitrarily connected to objects. For example, ‘sport’ may connote a range of
behaviours and practices that have changed over time as different groups appropriated
the term, but practical realists point to the fact that sport historians have built up a
strong consensus about these meanings and their relevant contexts. Practical realism
emphasises that historical facts derive from tangible material documents and hard
supporting evidence. For example, the olympic charter, is a concrete document, separate
from any language historians might use to describe it. Similarly, the charter limits the
factual assertions that historians can extract from it and hence the interpretations they
put forward. Practical realists concede that all histories begin from the personal interests
and cultural attributes of the historian. They admit that no knowledge is neutral and
that its production involves struggles between different interest groups. Nonetheless,
they reject the view that historical narratives are forms of literature. Likewise, they
dismiss the charge that constant reassessment of the past is proof that the field lacks
objectivity: reassessment reflects attempts by successive generations to give new meaning
to the past. I discuss practical realism further in Chapter 2.