Product Description
Politics has always been an integral part of the Olympics - not an occasional intruder in the form of a boycott, protest, or act of terrorism. In this probing social history, distinguished by a lively mix of journalism and scholarship, Allen Guttmann discusses the intended and actual meaning of the modern Olympic Games, from 1896 to 2000. Recounting the memorable and significant athletic events of the Olympics in terms of their social and political impact, Guttmann demonstrates that the modern games were revived to propagate a political message and continue to serve political purposes. This second edition of Guttmann's critically acclaimed history includes coverage of the controversial tenure of Juan Antonio Samaranch as president of the International Olympic Committee, a period tainted by rising drug use among athletes and scandals accompanying the awarding of sites and marked by the debut of openly professional athletes and the significantly increased role of female athletes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Skims the surface
This is a frustrating book.On one hand, there is a lot of good detail and information on the inception and growth of the modern Olympic games.On the other, just when you think Guttmann is going to delve deeper into a topic he simply skips right on by and gives a quick recap of the medal winners in a given year.He barely even mentions the travesty of 1972 in Munich, and makes only passing mentions of some of the iconic moments of the last 50 years.Instead, he seems much more concerned with the behind the scenes wrangling amongst the various members of the IOC.Indeed, the subtitle of the book should be "A history of the IOC leadership."

Thus, a definitive history of the Olympic games remains to be written.Although the blurbs on the back claim this is a landmark in social and political history, it is anything but.Babe Didrickson, Billy Mills, etc are mentioned, but that's about it.Even his discussion of South Africa and the associated boycotts related to Apartheid are fractured and incomplete.

It's worth a read...but I wish I had visited the library for this one rather than spent my money on it.I recommend you do the same. ... Read more

Product Description

An awesome festival of sporting excellence and competition, the Olympic Games have now evolved into a major international event with great cultural, political, economic and social importance.

The Olympic Games Explained is an introductory guide to the history and meaning of the four-yearly phenomenon that is the modern Olympic Games. The book provides a comprehensive overview of ‘Olympism’ from its Ancient Greek origins through the beginnings of the International Olympic Committee to the global Olympic Movement in the twenty-first century.

Each chapter offers a range of study tasks and review questions to help students develop their understanding of key concepts in Olympic studies.

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Published in the year that the Olympics return to Athens is the illuminating story of the making of the modern games. ... Read more

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This Great Symbol is the definitive study of the origins of the modern Olympic Games and of their founder, Pierre de Coubertin, whose ideological stamp the Olympics still bear. Behind this fascinating blend of biography and history lies an impressive framework of cultural, social, and psychological theories skilfully employed to interpret the creation and symbolism of the modern Olympic Games. Hailed as both a classic in sport history and as a paradigmatic study in the anthropology of the past, This Great Symbol helped launch the new collaboration between historians and cultural anthropologists that continues to mark the human sciences worldwide. For this 25^th anniversary edition, Professor MacAloon adds a new preface evaluating subsequent scholarship on Coubertin and the Olympic origins and a highly personal afterword describing the impact of This Great Symbol on his own subsequent career as an Olympic anthropologist and cultural performance theory.

This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

Product Description
Get in training for the Beijing Olympics with this fully updated series that tells the story of the Olympics from the earliest times to the present day. Each title looks at a different aspect of the Olympics and their great feats and scandals, to give readers a full introduction to the world's greatest sporting event. Each book: is packed with facts, figures and stories from the earliest Olympics to the present day; and includes discussion of the issues that have surrounded the Games in recent times, from terrorism to drugs scandals. ... Read more

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13 Pages ... Read more

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Together With Official Olympic And World Records And Proposed Program Of Tenth Olympiad. ... Read more

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This book is the result of intensive research and study. It will give the reader the opportunity to look more deeply at the movement for the revival of the Olympic Games, and especially at the part that modern Greece has played in the re-establishment of this great institution. Historically, the revival of the Olympic Games was founded on the will and efforts of many individuals. It was achieved by cumulatively making good use of various different endeavours, reinforced as they were by the cultural current of the time. The book includes many hitherto unpublished texts, principally of letters exchanged between leading figures with their common goal. This makes the book a rich source of knowledge from which to draw potentially invaluable data for today's and tomorrows Olympic historians. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, published by American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD) on June 1, 1996. The length of the article is 1035 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the supplier: The Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport (RQES) recognizes and pays tribute to the Olympic movement and its legacy in the 1996 centennial year of the Modern Olympic Games. The journal's essays promote an understanding and appreciation of the various ideological, political, economic and educational conceptions embodied in the Olympic movement. The special feature of RQES offers new interpretations and perspectives concerning the Modern Olympic Games.

Citation Details
Title: The Modern Olympic Games: new interpretations and perspectives.
Author: J. Thomas Jable
Publication: Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport (Refereed)
Date: June 1, 1996
Publisher: American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD)
Volume: v67Issue: n2Page: p119(2)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more