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Summary
Summary
For millions of people around the world, the Summer and Winter Games are a joy and a treasure, but how did they develop into a global colossus? How have they been buffeted by--and, in turn, affected by--world events? Why do we care about them so much?
From the reinvention of the Games in Athens in 1896 to Rio in 2016, best-selling sportswriter David Goldblatt brilliantly traces their history through national triumphs and tragedies, individual victories and failures. Here is the story of grand Olympic traditions such as winners' medals, the torch relay, and the eternal flame. Here is the story of popular Olympic events such as gymnastics, the marathon, and alpine skiing (as well as discontinued ones like tug-of-war). And here in all their glory are Olympic icons from Jesse Owens to Nadia Comaneci, Abebe Bikila to Bob Beamon, the Dream Team to Usain Bolt.
Hailed in the Wall Street Journal for writing about sports "with the expansive eye of a social and cultural critic," Goldblatt goes beyond the medal counts to tell how women fought to be included in the Olympics on equal terms, how the wounded of World War II led to the Paralympics, and how the Olympics reflect changing attitudes to race and ethnicity. He explores the tensions between the Games' amateur ideals and professionalization and commercialism in sports, the pitched battles between cities for the right to host the Games, and their often disappointing economic legacy. And in covering such seminal moments as Jesse Owens and Hitler at Berlin in 1936, the Black Power salute at Mexico City in 1968, the massacre of Israeli athletes at Munich in 1972, and the Miracle on Ice at Lake Placid in 1980, Goldblatt shows how prominently the modern Olympics have highlighted profound domestic and international conflicts.
Illuminated with dazzling vignettes from over a century of the Olympics, this stunningly researched and engagingly written history captures the excitement, drama, and kaleidoscopic experience of the Games.
Author Notes
David Goldblatt is the author of three acclaimed books about soccer, including the international bestseller The Ball Is Round. His podcast, Game of Our Lives, has recently been nominated for a Webby Award. He teaches at Pitzer College in Los Angeles and lives in Bristol, England.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Starting with the vigorous reboot of the modern Olympics by French aristocrat Pierre de Coubertin in the 19th century, Goldblatt (The Ball Is Round) chronicles the largest sporting event from the ancient games to the highly organized current spectacles of competition. Goldblatt, who uses peerless research to support his smoothly academic narrative, touches on the history of the first Greek games in 776 BC, the revival of the event in Athens in 1859, and its decline until Coubertin's effort to restart the games. The narrative includes the struggle of women and minorities in the games, and hits its stride when it details the grandeur of Hitler's 1936 games and the boldness of two black athletes, John Carlos and Tommie Smith, at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Goldblatt casts a wide net, covering the rise of TV as a global booster, the Cold War conflicts, the 1972 Munich massacre, the dominance of American swimmer Michael Phelps and Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, and the Russian doping scandal. Goldblatt takes a comprehensive, balanced look at the games that rates above its peers.. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
British sports journalist Goldblatt tackles the goliath of sporting events in this history of the Olympics, covering the Games from the birth of the modern Olympics in 1896 through the twenty-first century to the troubled 2016 Summer Games in Rio. We learn that there is really nothing unusual about the Rio situation;there are only a few examples throughout the modern era when the Olympic Games have been crisis-free. Goldblatt's well-documented study explores the successes and challenges of each Olympics, including the roles of international conflicts, the struggles of female athletes for inclusion, and the introduction of competition for wounded veterans following WWII (now evolved into the Paralympic Games). Goldblatt also covers the evolution of the Games as media spectacle, including the now-standard (and often over-the-top) theatrical productions that complement the competition. Scholarly in content but readable, this volume makes a significant contribution to sports history. Recommended for Olympics fans looking to gain a broad perspective on a sporting event the captures the imagination of the world every two years.--Barrera, Brenda Copyright 2016 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
THE IDIOT, by Elif Batuman. (Penguin, $16.) This loosely autobiographical novel - which our reviewer, Parul Sehgal, called "a hefty, gorgeous, digressive slab of a book" - charts the college life of Selin, a bookish naif at Harvard in the mid-1990s. The story borrows from Batuman's earlier work - heavy on Russophilia and kooky anecdotes - but offers a portrait of the intellectual and emotional development of an irresistible narrator. THE GAMES: A Global History of the Olympics, by David Goldblatt. (Norton, $17.95.) Goldblatt traces the glories and the stumbles of the modern Games, first held in Athens in 1896. Sexism, antiSemitism and racism have all plagued the Olympics for decades, as have scandals over worker conditions and concerns about doping. The book delves into the origins of beloved events like the marathon. SHADOWBAHN, by Steve Erickson. (Blue Rider, $16.) Twenty years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the twin towers inexplicably crop up in the South Dakota badlands, inhabited by Elvis's stillborn twin brother. Our reviewer, Fiona Maazel, compared the novel to "a polyphonic dirge for an America that has perhaps never lived anywhere but in the imagination of those of us who keep fighting for it anyway." WHITE TEARS, by Hari Kunzru. (Vintage, $16.) Seth and Carter, two 20-something New Yorkers, are music-obsessed and imagine themselves as cutting-edge producers. The pair release a track - a recent recording from Washington Square - but pass it off as a relic from Charlie Shaw, a singer of their invention supposedly lost to history. When the hoax gets traction, it sets off a ghost story that touches on appropriation, race and the blues. The novel benefits from Kunzru's cleareyed and canny view of America's cultural shifts. AGAINST EMPATHY: The Case for Radical Compassion, by Paul Bloom. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $16.99.) Bloom, a Yale psychology professor, urges a reconsideration of the roles that emotions play in moral decisions; as he puts it, "I want to make a case for the value of conscious, deliberative reasoning in everyday life, arguing that we should strive to use our heads rather than our hearts." THEMEN IN MY LIFE: A Memoir of Love and Art in 1950s Manhattan, by Patricia Bosworth. (Harper/ HarperCollins, $17.99.) Bosworth is perhaps best known as a biographer of stars like Diane Arbus and Montgomery Clift; her autobiography follows her navigating a glamorous career and sexual coming-of-age. But she doesn't give short shrift to what she calls "the bereaved creature inside me," mourning her brother and father.
Library Journal Review
Goldblatt (The Ball Is Round) explores the social and political history of the Olympic Games, from Pierre de Coubertin's neo-Hellenic vision as founder of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to the expensive spectacles of the 21st century. The bourgeois, white male origins of the games slowly transformed with the emergence of social movements, postcolonial nations, and communism; impacting medal winners and the composition of the IOC. From the 1972 Munich massacre to Jimmy Carter's failed boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, the games have become a political stage for organizations, nations, and athletes. Winning sometimes comes at the price of censorship, repression, and even death as witnessed in Mexico's 1968 Tlatelolco massacre. Goldblatt does not shy away from past and ongoing controversies: doping, amateurism vs. professionalism, and corruption within the IOC. He is highly critical of the event's rising costs ($51 billion for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi) and their economic strain on host cities and nations, noting that TV and the influence of corporate sponsors have led to increased popularity. VERDICT Highly recommended for all public libraries, this work will appeal to readers interested in the Olympics, the sociology of sport, and modern history.-Chris Wilkes, Tazewell Cty. P.L., VA © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| List of Illustrations | p. vii |
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| 1 This Grandiose and Salutary Task: The Reinvention of the Olympic Games | p. 5 |
| 2 All the Fun of the Fair: The Olympics at the End of the Belle Époque | p. 53 |
| 3 Not the Only Game in Town: The Olympics and Its Challengers in the 1920s | p. 93 |
| 4 It's Showtime!: The Olympics as Spectacle | p. 147 |
| 5 Small was Beautiful: The Lost Worlds of the Post-war Olympics | p. 193 |
| 6 The Image is Still There: Spectacle versus Anti-Spectacle at the Games | p. 231 |
| 7 Things Fall Apart: Bankruptcy, Boycotts and the End of Amateurism | p. 287 |
| 8 Boom!: The Globalization of the Olympics after the Cold War | p. 327 |
| 9 Going South: The Olympics in the New World Order | p. 389 |
| Conclusion | p. 437 |
| Notes | p. 447 |
| Index | p. 491 |