Key Reading on the Olympics

Barney, Robert K.  Selling the five rings: the International Olympic Committee and the rise of Olympic commercialism, by Robert K. Barney, Stephen R. Wenn, and Scott G. Martyn.  Utah, 2002.  384p index afp ISBN 0-87480-713-1, $35.00.  Outstanding Title! Reviewed in 2002nov CHOICE.

The authors provide a thorough examination of the financial and marketing evolution of the modern Olympic Games. When the Games were reintroduced at the end of the 19th century, costs were absorbed by the host city, and profit was not a consideration. Since then, and especially since 1932 when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) became more savvy, the Games have become a marketing and money-making tool. The authors provide a frank discussion of the ethics and mechanics of the commercialization of the Olympics and do not shy away from the paradoxical rules faced by the athletes, who, until recently, were prohibited from profiting from their sport. This is not a “quick read”–rather it is a careful accounting of the growth of the financial empire that is the Olympic Games. The authors provide more than 1,200 notes, many from minutes of the IOC General Sessions, minutes of IOC commissions, and personal interviews. Must reading for anyone interested in the changing face of the Olympic movement or competitive sports in general, this beautifully written book is recommended for academic and public libraries serving readers at all levels. — D. W. Hill, University of North Texas 

Brownell, Susan.  Beijing’s games: what the Olympics mean to China.  Rowman & Littlefield, 2008.  213p bibl index afp ISBN 0-7425-5640-9, $24.95; ISBN 9780742556409, $24.95. Reviewed in 2008aug CHOICE.

In an article posted in Olympic Review (“The Beijing Effect,” June-September 2006), Brownell (anthropology and foreign languages and literatures, Univ. of Missouri, St. Louis), an expert on Chinese sports, posed this question: “Will the Olympic Games change China, or will China change the Olympic Games?” In this book she answers her own question. Offering insightful, informed analyses, Brownell provides an understanding of the importance to China of hosting the 2008 summer Olympic Games and of what the games mean for China’s relationship with the outside world. Brownell highlights historical and cultural context, providing the reader with insights into the relationships between sport, gender, state power, stadium design, and nationalism in China. The author has personal experience in the Chinese sports world (a track-and-field athlete, she trained and competed alongside Chinese women), and she brings a human side to understanding the importance and passion felt by the Chinese as hosts of the 2008 Olympic Games. Revealing the weaknesses and concerns of sport competition at the global level, this book tells an intriguing story and helps the reader to understand the Olympics from a Chinese perspective. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers. — M. E. Beagle, Berea College 

Doping in elite sport: the politics of drugs in the Olympic movement, ed. by Wayne Wilson and Edward Derse.  Human Kinetics, 2001.  295p index ISBN 0-7360-0329-0, $35.00. Reviewed in 2001apr CHOICE.

This compilation is based on eight papers from a 1998 conference of the same title about the perceived failure of doping control efforts in international sport. Several papers were updated from the conference, and three new ones were added. There are three subject sections: science (including screening tests); history, ethics and social context; and politics. Many doping scandals are described, i.e., in swimming, in track and field, and in cycling; and comparisons are made between Canada, Germany, Russia, China, Australia, and the US. Jan Todd and Terry Todd organized and annotated an extensive chronology of significant drug testing events at the Olympics from 1960 to 1999.  John Hoberman thoroughly reviews the International Olympic Committee’s doping policy and cites numerous non-English language documents (especially German) in his notes. Charles Yesalis, Andrea Kopstein, and Michael Bahrke explain the difficulties in accurately assessing drug use in sport. The book ends with a journalist’s account of the February 1999 World Conference on Doping in Sport. As with any collection of writings by different authors of different backgrounds, the style, readability, organization, and referencing vary tremendously, but this is an important and unique overview and perspective; thus it belongs in any academic library. All readership levels. — E. R. Paterson, SUNY College at Cortland 

Encyclopedia of the modern Olympic movement, ed. by John E. Findling and Kimberly D. Pelle.  Greenwood, 2004.  602p bibl index afp ISBN 0-313-32278-3, $75.00. Reviewed in 2004oct CHOICE.

The Olympic Games are more than the premiere sporting competition for the athletes of the world. This volume provides an excellent place to research the history, politics, scandals, tragedies, finances, and immense work involved in putting on summer and winter games. Covering past Olympic Games since 1896 plus the upcoming games in Athens (2004), Torino (2006), Beijing (2008), and Vancouver (2010), this encyclopedia provides a wealth of knowledge about the challenges–past, present and future–of hosting the Olympic Games. Athens will host the first games of the 21st century amidst increasing fears of terrorism and the ever-mounting costs of security. For the first time in Olympic history the IOC (International Olympic Committee) has taken out a $170 million policy to protect against the cancellation of the games because of war, terrorism, or earthquakes. This source is intended for extensive research on the Olympics and is not a fact finder about who won which medal. It is enhanced by illustrations, bibliographical essays, informative appendixes listing such things as Internet sources and biographies of IOC presidents, and a general bibliography describing major archival collections and Olympic films. Summing Up: Recommended. All collections. — D. J. Turner, Auraria Library 

Large, David Clay.  Nazi games: the Olympics of 1936.  W.W. Norton, 2007.  401p index ISBN 0-393-05884-0, $27.95; ISBN 9780393058840, $27.95. Reviewed in 2008may CHOICE.

Since the appearance of Richard Mandell’s The Nazi Olympics (1971), US readers have been awash in books on the Olympic Games of 1936. Many of these volumes have focused on the US presence at these games, particularly the presence of African Americans–America’s “black auxiliaries,” as Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels called them–and the US’s role as hesitant hero in the international debate over boycotting the games to deny their use as Nazi propaganda. Mandell casts the mold for future studies by devoting a mere two of ten chapters to athletics; the remaining chapters cover international politics, a path taken by several subsequent journalistic works. Now Large offers a book that combines scholarly rigor with accessible style. His book is the first based on research at the Olympic archives at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland; in German city and state archives; and in the scattered personal papers of participants in the 1936 Olympics. The result is a worthy successor to Mandell, a study that deepens and authenticates the earlier work while opening the topic to the general reader. The book includes a signature of evocative photographs drawn from the Lausanne archives. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers, all levels. — T. Cripps, emeritus, Morgan State University

Lenskyj, Helen Jefferson.  Inside the Olympic industry: power, politics, and activism.  State University of New York, 2000.  216p bibl index afp ISBN 0-7914-4755-3, $59.50. Reviewed in 2001jan CHOICE.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC), one of the most powerful groups in the world, answers only to itself, calls itself the “Olympic Family,” and fosters and promotes what it terms the Olympic Movement. Lenskyj (sociology, Univ. of Toronto) attacks the IOC and its supposed idealism and calls the Committee and its movement the “Olympic Industry.” As she states, her “single goal in writing this book is to promote social justice for oppressed groups whose disadvantages are exacerbated by the Olympic industry.” After years of rumors and allegations about the bribery involved in Salt Lake City’s bid to be host city for the Olympic Games, the media published facts and figures in 1998 about gifts and corruption by Salt Lake City, now chosen as host city for the 2002 Winter Games. She describes anti-Olympic and watchdog organizations that are underreported in the press. Even after many investigations and commissions since 1998, she claims that neither honesty nor accountability has been established. Her pessimistic conclusion is that it is impossible to have meaningful reform with existing Olympic structures. Recommended for serious scholars of the Olympic Games and also for those who examine social injustice. Graduate students; faculty. — J. Davenport, Auburn University 

Morris, Andrew D.  Marrow of the nation: a history of sport and physical culture in Republican China.  California, 2004.  368p bibl index afp  (Asia: local studies / global themes, 10) ISBN 0-520-24084-7, $49.95.  Outstanding Title! Reviewed in 2005mar CHOICE.

In this well-written book, Morris (history, California Polytechnic State Univ., San Luis Obispo) demonstrates how “sports”–an inadequate English translation of the Chinese concept of tiyu (literally, “physical culture”), which is the focus of this book–lay at the intersection of nationalism, modernity, and contact with the West in Republican China (1911-49). Providing in-depth historical case studies from Chinese sports-related books, magazines, and other archival sources, Morris concludes that in the first part of the 20th century Chinese reformers and the state used sports not only as an instrument to create a modern citizen but also as a fundamental aspect in transforming the state itself. Morris contextualizes the emergence of modern sports such as martial arts in Chinese historical practices, showing how specific organizations–the Chinese YMCA, state-organized sporting organizations, popular organizations created by sports activists–remain part of the ongoing historical project of creating a modern Chinese identity. His detailed presentation and analysis of historical data reveals the continuing issues and importance of sports in contemporary China, especially in light of the 2008 Olympics, which will be held in Beijing. Summing Up: Essential. Collections supporting Chinese culture and politics as well as sports; upper-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers. — E. P. Lozada, Davidson College 

National identity and global sports events: culture, politics, and spectacle in the Olympics and the football World Cup, ed. by Alan Tomlinson and Christopher Young.  State University of New York, 2006.  244p bibl index afp ISBN 0-7914-6615-9, $65.00. Reviewed in 2006sep CHOICE.

One of the 20 volumes to date in the “SUNY Series on Sport, Culture and Social Relations,” this book brings together work on the culture, politics, and spectacle surrounding the world’s two largest transnational sporting events, the modern Olympic Games and the men’s soccer World Cup. Other volumes in the series include two by Helen Lenskyj, Inside the Olympic Industry (CH, Jan’01, 38-2795) and The Best Olympics Ever?: Social Impacts of Sydney 2000 (CH, Feb’03, 40-3466); these too delve into the social significance of large international sporting events and their many subtle social subplots. Well conceptualized and constructed, the present title not only traces the historic roots of various events–for example, the so-called football fascism of the second World Cup in Italy and the boycott controversy surrounding the 1936 Berlin Games–but also offers sociocultural context for people, places, and events, thus allowing the reader to gain a full perspective of the multidimensional role and status of sports on the world’s stage. The essays, as a whole, offer a well-documented articulation of the entrenched and dominant political ideologies surrounding sport and of how sport serves as a playing ground for changing sociopolitical climates in an increasingly global community. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. — M. L. Krotee, North Carolina State University 

The Nazi Olympics: sport, politics and appeasement in the 1930s, ed. by Arnd Krüger (Kruger) and William Murray.  Illinois, 2003.  260p bibl index afp ISBN 0-252-02815-5, $44.95. Reviewed in 2004apr CHOICE.

Deserving a place on the shelf with Richard Mandell’s The Nazi Olympics (1971), Allen Guttmann’s The Games Must Go On (1984), and Krüger’s own Die Olympischen Spiele 1936 und die Weltmeinung (Berlin, 1972), this volume in the “Sport and Society” series is noteworthy for its unique approach to the subject. Each of the dozen essays treats a different participating nation, taking into account both the games themselves and each nation’s political response to the rise of Nazism: a threatened US boycott in response to Nazi antisemitism, a Spanish “popular” Olympics in Barcelona, a Dutch parody of the Berlin Games, nonparticipation by the Soviet Union in such a “bourgeois” event, etc. For its part, Nazi Germany played a double game, on the one hand aggressively reoccupying the Rhineland, on the other promulgating an “Olympic pause” in the overt expressions of antisemitism. The book is not all politics. Each contributor focuses on sports as well–in Scandinavia, winter sports; in the US, the star quality of Jesse Owens and other African American athletes. A solid piece of work, the book is served by informative endnotes for each essay and a general bibliographic essay, useful appendix, and serviceable index. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All students of political history and sports; all levels. — T. Cripps, Morgan State University 

Official Website of the Olympic movement.  Internet Resource. Reviewed in 2006sup CHOICE.
http://www.olympic.org/ 

[Visited May’04] The official Web site of the Olympic movement, this is the ultimate source for the Olympic enthusiast. The site is current, and it provides up-to-the-minute news about the preparations for the Games. The site also provides links and information about every prior Olympic Games, numerous historical archives, and even publications found on the Amateur Athletic Foundation’s Web site, publications that date back to 1894, two years before the first of the modern Olympics. The attractive Olympics site also provides access to scores of photos and interesting graphics without bombarding the visitor with too much media and graphics. Easy for browsing and for finding specific information, the site presents material both in English (with British spellings) and in French (the official language of the Olympics). Summing Up: Highly recommended. All users. — D. W. Hill, University of North Texas

The Olympics at the millennium: power, politics, and the games, ed. by Kay Schaffer and Sidonie Smith.  Rutgers, 2000.  318p bibl index afp ISBN 0-8135-2819-4, $55.00; ISBN 0-8135-2820-8  pbk, $23.00. Reviewed in 2001mar CHOICE.

As editors Schaffer (Univ. of Adelaide) and Smith (Univ. of Michigan) state in their introduction, this book is not about sports or athletic performances so much as moments in the history of the Olympic Games and cultural issues related to them. In 18 chapters, 23 authors consider class, gender, race/ethnicity, drugs, and sexuality questions, as well as media, nationalism, ceremonies, and politics of the games. Treatments range from memories of personal experiences to well-documented research reports. Background and events leading to the first Winter Olympics, the topic of Jewish athletes and the 1936 Olympics, and the development of gender testing for women’s events are handled well. The chapter on the Gay Games, marginally related to the book’s theme, offers a striking contrast between the underlying principles and style of that event and the Olympics. The Sydney Olympics is the subject of several articles, including those on questions related to Australia’s indigenous peoples, bidding for the games, and nationalism and the quest for medals. This collection of articles should interest a general audience and provide material for lively discussion and further investigation by students (upper-division undergraduates and above) of sport history and the role of sports in popular culture. — R. McGehee, Concordia University at Austin 

Onward to the Olympics: historical perspectives on the Olympic Games, ed. by Gerald P. Schaus and Stephen R. Wenn.  Wilfrid Laurier, 2007.  376p bibl index afp ISBN 0-88920-505-1, $65.00; ISBN 9780889205055, $65.00. Reviewed in 2007sep CHOICE.

Wilfrid Laurier University professors Schaus (archaeology and classical studies) and Wenn (kinesiology and physical education) have collected 13 essays on the ancient Olympics and 10 on its modern counterpart. The topics are eclectic. For example, in the first part, “The Olympics in Antiquity,” one learns how scholars have worked to interpret small bits of sometimes-contradictory evidence to piece together the roots and stories of the ancient Olympics and specific subjects such as judging, women, and commemorative coins. In part 2, “The Modern Olympics,” topics include the inspiration for the torch relay, womanizing Olympic athletes in the Avery Brundage era, the marriage between the Olympics and business under Juan Antonio Samaranch, and the future of the Olympic movement. Some sections require a love for, and some knowledge of, ancient history; others will oblige the reader to have a dictionary at hand. However, the authors are experts, the essays are neither too short nor too long, and the book is well edited. It will certainly please those fascinated by the Olympics, and it may just captivate some history lovers. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. — D. W. Hill, University of North Texas 

Payne, Michael.  Olympic turnaround: how the Olympic Games stepped back from the brink of extinction to become the world’s best known brand.  Praeger, 2006.  332p bibl index afp ISBN 0-275-99030-3, $39.95.  Outstanding Title! Reviewed in 2006jul CHOICE.

Though the Olympic movement grew confidently after its revival by Baron Pierre de Coubertin in 1896, by the 1970s, Payne writes, “decay had set in.” With terrorist killings at the 1972 Munich Games, huge cost overruns at the 1976 Montreal Games, and successive boycotts at the Montreal, Moscow, and Los Angeles events, many believed that the Olympic movement would soon end. Payne describes how the International Olympic Committee reinvented itself in the 1980s under the leadership of Juan Antonio Samaranch, and how the Olympic Games became the world’s best-known brand, attracting billions in advertising and broadcast revenues. He should know. In 1983, he was hired to develop a marketing strategy for the IOC and he served as its marketing director over the course of 15 Olympic Games. This narrative is exceptionally well written, detailed yet clear, well referenced but not cluttered, firsthand but not self-serving. An easy, enjoyable, and often exciting read, it will fascinate anyone interested in the business of communication and advertising and of course anyone who has ever been intrigued by the Olympic Games themselves. Summing Up: Essential. All readers; all levels. — D. W. Hill, University of North Texas 

Roche, Maurice.  Mega-events and modernity: Olympics and expos in the growth of global culture.  Routledge, 2000.  281p bibl indexes ISBN 0-415-15711-0, $90.00; ISBN 0-415-15712-9  pbk, $29.95. Reviewed in 2001jul CHOICE.

Roche’s study spans the evolution of modern society’s development of mega-events in all their various forms of world fairs, expositions, festivals, world cups, and Olympics. Emerging out of the internally focused performances of national identity in the 19th century, these “mass rituals” have became increasingly involved with the expressing of a preferred external image and the integration of places into an international system of communication and economics. Roche sees mega-events as being both reflections of and complicit in “the history of modern international culture.” Beginning with an overly didactic and theorized introduction, the volume is divided into two substantive parts. Part 1 addresses the emergence of mega-events as devices of national inclusion and expressions of putative national values. Part 2 is concerned with the contemporary experience of public culture in an internationalizing world encountering a global consumer culture, embryonic forms of global governance, and new communications technologies. A final chapter provides an assessment of the role of mega-events for personal identity in this stage of late modernity and for social structural processes in a global society. While the author’s approach is overly “signposted,” this is a fine scholarly work with a rich set of informative footnotes and a definitive bibliography. — B. Osborne, Queen’s University at Kingston 

Spivey, Nigel.  The ancient Olympics.  Oxford, 2004.  273p bibl index ISBN 0-19-280433-2, $28.00. Reviewed in 2005jan CHOICE.

Spivey (classics, Univ. of Cambridge, UK) has written many books on ancient art (among them Enduring Creation: Art, Pain, and Fortitude, CH, Dec’01, 39-1991; Understanding Greek Sculpture: Ancient Meaning, Modern Readings, CH, Nov’96, 34-1343), but here he turns to the ancient Olympics, offering a comprehensive treatment that covers all the background and all the events. Whereas most people think of the ancient games as the epitome of amateurism and lofty ideals, Spivey (who also coaches athletics at Cambridge) demonstrates that in fact the opposite is true: the ancient games were replete with treachery, and athletes used all means available to win. Indeed, the British edition of this book bears the subtitle “War without the Shooting.” Spivey describes every event in detail, and to this information he adds highlights of the feats of perennial winners. The volume is enhanced by dozens of photographs. Summing Up: Essential. All levels, but especially serious scholars of the ancient Olympics. — J. Davenport, emerita, Auburn University 

Sport and physical education in China, ed. by James Riordan and Robin Jones.  E & FN Spon/International Society for Comparative Physical Education and Sport, 1999.  278p bibl index ISBN 0-419-24750-5, $100.00; ISBN 0-419-22030-5 pbk, $37.99.  Outstanding Title! Reviewed in 2000dec CHOICE.

This fourth book in a series commissioned by the International Society for Comparative Physical Education and Sport (ISCP) offers an outstanding glimpse of physical education and sport in the People’s Republic of China. Riordan (Univ. of Surrey, UK) and Jones (Loughborough Univ., UK) have gathered as contributors a group of experts with intimate English ties who have spent considerable professional time in Hong Kong and China. The work is divided into three themed sections. The first offers an overview and explanation of the historical roots of sports and physical education. The second concentrates on physical education and sport in schools, universities, the Olympics, and in the elite and professional sporting ranks. The last section delves into sport science, sport medicine, sport management structure and systems, mass fitness, and Chinese women and sport. The well-referenced text includes valuable material from several highly respected Chinese scholars and makes an outstanding contribution to the profession. The book is highly recommended to students of any level who are interested in the world’s largest arena of physical education and sport participants. — M. L. Krotee, University of Minnesota

Young, David C.  The modern Olympics: a struggle for revival.  Johns Hopkins, 1996.  252p bibl index afp ISBN 0-8018-5374-5, $39.95. Reviewed in 1997jul CHOICE.

Young describes 19th-century activities in Britain and Greece that contributed significantly to the revival of the Olympic Games. Greek poet Panagiotis Soutsos was already pleading for a renewal of ancient Greece’s athletic traditions and Olympic Games in 1833, more than 60 years prior to the founding of what became the International Olympic Committee, whose initial meeting was called in Paris by Pierre de Coubertin in 1894 (the first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens in 1896). Another Olympics pioneer, W.P. Brookes, formed an “Olympian” association in 1850 in the English village of Much Wenlock and that same year organized and held the first Wenlock Olympian Games, which have continued on an annual basis to the present. Inspired by Brookes’s ideas, National Olympian Games were held in London in 1866. This three-day festival included six athletic events; it was repeated in 1867 and 1868 but with diminishing success. With the encouragement and generous financial support of Evangelis Zappas, Greek Olympics were held in Athens in 1859, and again in 1870 and 1875. The second half of the book treats Coubertin’s relationship with Brookes and Coubertin’s role, along with that of several Greeks, in the preparations for the 1896 Games. Young’s information (including 60 pages of notes) helps to establish a new view of the origins of the Olympic movement. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals. — R. McGehee, Southeastern Louisiana University

Editor’s note: Other pertinent titles with reviews forthcoming:

Owning the Olympics: Narratives of the New China, ed. by Monroe E. Price and Daniel Dayan.  Michigan, 2008.  ISBN 9780472070329

Olympic Dreams: China and Sports, 1895-2008, by Xu Guoqi.  Harvard, 2008.  ISBN 9780674028401.