A Brief History of Curling: How a Sixteenth-Century Scottish Game Crossed Oceans, Survived Two World Wars, and Conquered the Winter Olympics (Engrossing History) Hardcover – February 26, 2026

In 1511, someone inscribed a date on a rough granite stone and sent it sliding across a frozen Scottish loch. That stone still exists. The game it belongs to never stopped.A Brief History of Curling traces one of the world's oldest team sports from its origins on the frozen lochs of sixteenth-century Scotland to the Olympic arenas of the twenty-first century, across five centuries of history that is richer, more dramatic, and more human than most people have ever been given the chance to discover.Inside these pages you will find:The fascinating origins debate between Scotland and Flanders, and what the evidence actually showsHow John Cairnie transformed a collection of local traditions into an organized national sport in 1838The remarkable story of curling's journey across the Atlantic with Scottish immigrants during the Highland ClearancesThe golden age of curling clubs, and what they meant to the communities that built and sustained them through two World WarsThe competitive dynasty of the Richardson rink, and the specific tactical genius that made them unbeatableSandra Schmirler's Olympic gold medal at Nagano 1998, and the human story behind the greatest moment in the sport's modern historyThe brushgate controversy that tested the sport's values and what the response revealed about its characterThe rise of Niklas Edin, Jennifer Jones, Eve Muirhead, and Team Kim as the defining figures of the contemporary gameAn honest assessment of where curling is going, including the challenges it faces and the reasons for genuine optimismWritten with the narrative drive of the best popular history and grounded in careful research, A Brief History of Curling is the book that takes a sport the world has often underestimated and gives it the serious, readable, deeply human treatment it has always deserved.Whether you have been curling for forty years or have never held a stone, this book will change how you see the game, the ice, and the remarkable people who have kept both alive for five hundred years.The stone is still in the air. Find out how it got there. Read more