Why are more and more people risking their lives in adventure and risk sports in a way that at first glance seems completely unnecessary? The author shows that the motives for risky practices point to »outdated« needs that are marginalized in contemporary society. Extreme sport allows these needs to be lived out, but also entangles risk players in contradictions and paradoxes from which there is no escape. The book goes far beyond the previous explanatory approaches to extreme sports and opens up new ways of reading modern society and its body practices.
