The Games: A Global History of the Olympics

by David Goldblatt

Renowned sportswriter David Goldblatt has been hailed by the Wall Street Journal for writing with the expansive eye of a social and cultural critic. In The Games Goldblatt delivers a magisterial history of the biggest sporting event of them all: the Olympics. He tells the epic story of the Games from their reinvention in Athens in 1896 to the present day, chronicling classic moments of sporting achievement from Jesse Owens to Nadia Comaneci, the Miracle on Ice to Usain Bolt. He goes beyond the medal counts to explore how international conflicts have played out at the Olympics, including the role of the Games in Fascist Germany and Italy, the Cold War, and the struggles of the postcolonial world for recognition. He also tells the extraordinary story of how women fought to be included on equal terms, how the Paralympics started in the wake of World War II, and how the Olympics reflect changing attitudes to race and ethnicity.

Genres: History, Sports, Nonfiction, Politics, 20th Century, Audiobook, 21st Century

528 pages, Hardcover

Published July 26, 2016

About the author

Librarians note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

David Goldblatt is a highly experienced sports writer, broadcaster, and journalist. He is the author of The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football (Penguin, 2006), the definitive historical account of the world’s game. He has also written the World Football Yearbook (Dorling Kindersley, 2002), which was published in nine languages and ran to three editions.

As a journalist, he has written for most of the quality broadsheet newspapers including the Guardian, the Observer, the Financial Times, and The Independent on Sunday, as well as for magazines such as the New Statesman and the New Left Review. He is a regular reviewer of sports books for The Independent and The Times Literary Supplement and is currently the sports’ columnist for Prospect magazine.

As a freelance reporter he has worked for BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service, including producing documentaries on football in Jerusalem and the politics of football in Kenya. He has also appeared on other BBC radio programmes including The World Today, The World Tonight, The Sunday Morning Show, and Africa – Have Your Say.

In addition to his extensive writing and broadcasting career, he has also taught the sociology of sport at the University of Bristol and has run literacy programmes at both Bristol City and Bristol Rovers football clubs, as well as teaching sport, film, and media at the Watershed arts cinema, also in Bristol.

Reviews

[Allison · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love history and historical books, but this book wasn't exactly the history that I was expecting/hoping for. It was very detailed, but didn't really keep me interested. I would have liked more about the highlights that one would expect from a book about the olympics and a little bit less about the committees and the Baron de Coubertin!

[Mike Bechtel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well certainly comprehensive, I found this to be very dry.

[James Marland · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read on flight to Rio to get into the mood. A lot of focus on the politics behind the games, why cities were chosen. Would have preferred more about the actual games themselves.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this book free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really looked forward to reading this account of the history of the Olympic Games, especially with the upcoming Rio 2016 Games. However, I must confess that I was disappointed when I actually read the book.

The size of the book promises plenty of facts and details about the Olympic competitions, and Goldblatt certainly delivers on PLENTY. I often felt overwhelmed with the information, especially as the existent organization was scant. Each of the labeled chapters was divided into untitled subsections, which rarely seemed to have an organizing topic. The text in these sections often jumped from year to year, country to country, or event to event without clear connections between the two. This made it difficult for me, as the reader, to remember the new information I'd gained, as interesting facts would show up as afterthoughts or squeezed between two other accounts. In fact, the organization was so haphazard, that I often didn't know the purpose of a subsection until I'd finished the ten pages, and I regularly needed to stop reading to remind myself of the chapter title and consider how the page I was reading related to the chapter. Finally, and more jarring than the topic changes, were the random author intrusions, when Goldblatt commented on the difficulty of a task or cheered a competition.

All in all, most of my experience reading this text was frustrating, but I must admit it did deliver the information I sought. Unfortunately, it has discouraged me from reading any other Goldblatt book, though I'd been looking forward to his account of the history of soccer.

[Shom Biswas · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is supposed to be essential reading and memorization for sports quizzers. I am a decent sports quizzer- I qualify to all-India sports quizzes often, and even among medal positions on rare occasions.
But f**k this is one tedious read. Too much work. I will drop this book, alright? The Ball is Round this ain't.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not one of those people who gets involved with sports. I don't watch Big Sports of any type (even living in this miraculous year in Cleveland.) Team sports hold no interest for me and I tend to be put off by the rabid partisanship of the crowds, the idolization of overgrown boys who can play what are basically children's games with skill and their out-of-proportion importance in our society. I am the first to grouse about the billions of dollars we pour into these entertainments which could, instead, be used on medical research, alternative energy sources, hunger and infrastructure. -- I am also thoroughly creeped out by the nationalism I see encroaching more and more into our world view. It was a bad idea eighty years ago and it remains a bad idea today.

Yet...I am a hypocrite. Because I have a soft spot for the hyped up, money hemorrhaging, nationalist circus that is the Olympic Games. Although I view their current underpinnings with suspicion and a bit of disgust, I enjoy the spectacle and the events, themselves. I have a long memory for some things and my Olympic memories extend back to Munich (that dismal and frightening Games, marred by the footage of armed terrorists and police on balconies in the Olympic Village.) I looked forward the the Olympics because we had to wait four years between them (which felt like an eternity to a child) and because they took place in various exotic locales around the globe. I was a child who was fascinated, from an early age, with other cultures and parts of the world. My life ambition was to be a 'world traveller' (a goal I met, mainly, through the television and my viewing of the Olympics and other documentaries about the world's treasures.)

I recall Olga Korbut, Marc Spitz, Dorothy Hamil, Bruce Jenner (long before Kaitlyn), Nadia Comaneci, Torvill and Dean, Carl Lewis, Sebastian Coe, Sugar Ray Leonard, the East German women's swimming team, the US hockey team 'miracle' of 1980, Greg Louganis, Mary Lou Retton, Katarina Witt, and on and on and on. I could write six more paragraphs about the memories I have being glued to the TV with my family watching our collective pop cultural sports history unfold throughout the latter part of the 20th century. -- As an adult, I have had less time to watch and I have been less happy with the coverage of the events. (Less depth of coverage, too much focus on American athletes and gold medalists and not enough attention paid to athletes from other regions and athletes who are deeper back in the medal field but who may have intriguing personal stories.)

So there is a lot for me to love but also a lot for me to wince about when it comes to this world wide ritual. -- As I read The Games, I had a clear impression that the author, David Goldblatt, has a similarly complex relationship with the Olympics. His commentary on the history of the Games was, at times, scathing. (I found him to be quite funny.) And I believe he almost wrote parts of this book as a cautionary tale. Fans may not be aware of how out-of-control the Olympics have become from a staging perspective. Very few cities in the world can actually afford to present them and to keep them relatively secure at this point. They have ballooned into a high maintenance White Elephant with champagne taste, which may not survive long into the 21st century if reforms and retooling do not take hold.

The Olympic Committee does not come off smelling like a rose in this narrative. They are, apparently, very much an Old Boys Club of insiders who enjoy luxury travel. (I don't know how you get this gig...but it sounds like a sweet deal to me...getting first class treatment for months at a time as one vets the sexiest world capitals on the globe. Nice work, if you can get it.) They have also been somewhat fossilized and very late to adapt to the changing world around them. Goldblatt saves a lot of his hilarious British sarcasm for this gang of grifters.

But we all like to look back on the highlight reel of our lives and these 'collective events' are growing more and more rare in a fragmented world where everyone has their own Youtube channel and Soundcloud mix. People no longer join community groups or social organizations (Bowling Alone) and fewer and fewer belong to organized religions. Gone is the group experience in most of our lives. Perhaps this is why we have become so relentlessly tribal in our sports fandom and our political affiliations. These remain the few areas in our lives where we feel part of a larger group of 'people like us'.

I enjoyed this overview of the Games because it did ignite some deeply buried memories I have as a spectator. I was also fascinated by the chapters on the early modern Games from the turn of the last century. (There is interesting video footage online of the London Games from 1908.) The Games provides an interesting overview of the modern Olympic Games from Athens in 1896 through an introduction to the Rio Games we just finished viewing this past summer. The Summer Games get more coverage in this book than the Winter Games, (which are described as somewhat of a step child to the Summer Games, at least initially. They seem to have gained in stature and popularity in more contemporary times. I have always enjoyed them equally, being fond of figure skating and skiing.)

I was hoping that the book would have a bit more depth about each Olympics. However, the scope here is to provide an overview of the history of the Games as a whole. Something more detailed would probably be encyclopedic in length. I do not feel this is a demerit. The Games was a solid and entertaining starting point. I am interested in the topic and will probably search for more titles about the various Olympics I remember watching over the years.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starting in 1896 with Athens the Olympics were revived and every 4 years the event gets bigger, the staging more elaborate and more athletes compete.

Why I started this book: I love watching the Olympics and basically spend two weeks glued to the TV. I was eager to learn more about the Olympics and get some insights into the background, behind the scenes stuff.

Why I finished it: First of all, the audio was a little confusing as Goldblatt would group 2-5 of the cities together and talk about a theme or issue starting with the first games in the group and then moving forward. He would then jump back and pick another thread for that group and follow it. I bet the physical book had markers or sections and it was easy to understand but it took me a while to figure it out.
Crazy to consider the changes that the Olympics have gone through in just 100+ years. From all white males, to embracing the world, both genders, disabled and pro-athletes, its been a wild ride. And if the games don't live up to their ideals its still a fabulous show.

[Patrick Book · Rating 3 out of 5]

Im most pleased with this book for teaching me that shin kicking was once an "Olympic" sport.

This book is great but it may suffer from being too exhaustive, too authoritative. There are clearly fascinating stories tied to certain games that are deserving of their own entire books. To cram the entire history into one is a rewarding exercise, but each games' story can't help but feel somewhat rushed. Still, an incredible summation.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Games presents a historic overview of the ancient Olympic games and attempts to revive them through the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution. The eventual revival of the modern Olympics as we know them today is covered as is the development through the 20th century. This was a free review audio copy was obtained through Goodreads.com. It does provide a decent history that would be of interest to any fan of the Olympics.

[Ramnath Iyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I intended to read this book just before the 2016 Rio Olympics – when it was released. I ended up reading it just before the 2018 Winter Olympics began, finishing it just in time for the opening ceremony. But it feels rather appropriate - delayed starts, races against time, and “time (as well as cost) overruns”, have become increasingly common in Olympic host cities, as highlighted by David Goldblatt in his thorough and well researched “The Games – A global history of the Olympics”.
The book is not a dry or plain recounting of various events, winners, facts and stats. Instead, this is an opinionated and well-argued history of the Olympic movement, the socio-cultural and political backdrops of the various games, the different metaphors and symbolisms that they represented at various times. The sporting greats and achievements are recounted too – but those are not Goldblatt’s only focus.
In fact, those uncomfortable with being reminded of the corruption – and poor governance, political one-upmanship, petty bureaucratic squabbles, pompous officials, heavy handed government handling of the poor and homeless who come in the way of the construction projects - will find the book too critical and not celebratory enough. Sadly, corruption and mismanagement are a reality not just at the IOC, but also at world ruling bodies for football, athletics and volleyball, among others, as a strong of high profile scandals that have come to light in recent years show. But the author’s opinions are well supported by facts, and the blending and juxtaposition of the Games themselves with the backdrops and side-stories make for an engrossing read.
He starts with a brief history of the ancient Olympics and similar events that sporadically took place over the centuries, and of Baron de Coubertin, the French aristocrat whose passion to recreate the ancient games led to birth of the IOC and the modern Olympic movement. Goldblatt sees the history of the Games as one that’s intertwined with global power dynamics. While the first few Olympics struggled find a footing (the 1900, 1904 and 1908 Games were held as an adjunct to “World Trade Fairs” in those cities) and those even in the 1920s were small affairs, Berlin 1936 changed it all. Held as a showcase of the political ideology of Nazism and to directly serve as a form of state-directed global soft power, these were the first Games to have a purpose built gargantuan stadium, multi-sports Olympic Park, a new concept called Olympic torch relay and spruced city that was prepped to be an actor on the global stage.
The war that followed, and the post War austerity days meant a return to less showy Games in the 50’s, but from the 1960s, they again served as announcements of countries’ arrival on the global stage, such as Tokyo as a futuristically modern city in 1964, Mexico as an industrialized nation in 1968 and Rome 1960 and Germany 1972 as symbols of re-emergence from the post War aftermaths. Seoul 1988 and Beijing 2008 were similar. This period also coincided with the onset of the television age, and Olympics began the journey to being the multi-billion dollar spectacles that they now are. With the desire of host cities to be as much a star of the show came skyrocketing costs on grandiose projects, and corruption that usually goes with it. Montreal set a new record for the time with the builder-government nexus, something also very evident in the construction-linked corruption scandals washing over the entire political firmament in Brazil in the run up to Rio 2016.
The book also shows how the personalities of those heading the IOC also meshed with the kind of Games that were held – from the anti-Semite Avery Brundage who fended off some American calls to boycott the Berlin games, the genteel old-boy Lord Killanin to the pompous Juan Antonio Samaranch, who treated the IOC like his personal fiefdom – and accorded himself status equivalent to a Head of State, with similar security, mandatory presidential suites and usually met with presidents, kings and heads of states wherever he travelled.
Along with that, Goldblatt also has an eye for the delightful and the quirky, not just for the greatest. Thus, while the achievements of Michael Phelps, Michael Johnson, Usain Bolt, Olga Korbut and the Indian national hockey team are highlighted, he also finds space to highlight stories of human interest. How at the 1964 Tokyo Games the Sri Lankan runner Karunananda lagged by 4 laps when the race was won, and yet continued to finish the laps to a standing applause from the crowd – a celebration of the spirit, which also won him an audience with the Emperor. Or the fan mania at the same Games for swimming champion Don Schollander, who then featured in Japan’s English teaching books. Or the coach of the US ice hockey team that beat the Soviet Union in the 1980 Winter Games and then exclaimed to the President at a White House audience that “this proves our system is better than theirs”!
Baron de Coubertin had in mind an almost austere, almost spiritual celebration of sport as a character building activity and pastime. He did not really intend his creation to become a global bureaucracy and the global norm in sport. Nor did he envisage the Olympic Games to become a place for collective delirium, or the stage for battles of race, gender, class or international relations. But that’s what they have become.

[Christie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most important thing to know about this book is that it is not a sports book, despite the title. It is not a review of the great Olympic moments and athletes (although a few do make the pages), but rather a history of the modern Olympic movement, the politics behind each Olympics, and what the future of the Olympics might look like. This could possibly be disappointing for many readers, I know for awhile I was a bit disappointed myself, but I got so wrapped up in the book that after awhile it didn't matter.

The book covers mainly the Summer Olympics (Winter Olympics make a few appearances) from the first modern games in 1896 to the weeks leading up to Rio in 2016. It covers the evolution of the games from a gathering of sporting gentlemen from Western Europe to the commercial and multicultural event it is today. The good, the bad, and the ugly find their place on the pages. Here you will find that every Olympics has pretty much been chaos right up until the opening ceremony (most have been in danger of not happening at all), that politics and protest have always been a part of the games, and that the IOC has always been corrupt. It is a fascinating way to look at world history in the 20th century and how political and social movements were reflected in and by the Olympics.

Its a long read and can sometimes be a little boring, but if you are interested in going behind the scenes of the Olympics, I would highly recommend it. It will definitely make you see them in a different light.

[Pamela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whether it was the enormous amount of facts covered or the author's choice to spend his time recounting the mismanagement by the Olympic Committee and the corruption and greed of the cities involved, this book became a constant repetition of dry facts rather than a history of modern sport and athletes. Instead of recounting details of amazing feats of human athleticism, we are supplied with endless details of doping scandals, kickback schemes, vote buying, snobbery, racism and every possible human fault inherent in large-scale productions where money changes hands.

These things are interesting, no doubt. And they certainly make up a large part of the history of the modern Olympics. Still, it would have been nice if David Goldblatt, a noted sportswriter, could have focused a little more on the sporting accomplishments that occur every four years in spite of all the doping and bribery and vote buying we all know goes on. After all, this is the reason that worldwide, the audience for the Olympics continues to grow. In spite of the drawbacks, we still find human endeavor worthy of note.

[John Stroup]

The history of the Olympic games began 2,700 years ago and was started by the Greeks. The Greeks were thought to be competitive in these sports and they started actually playing Olympic games in 776 BC which inspired the modern Olympic games. I really liked this because I myself love watching the Olympics it's what I watch the most. I decided to read this because the cover caught my eye and I was interested in learning the history of the Olympics. You should read this book if you're interested in learning the history behind the Olympics

[DS25 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Troppo focus sul lato politico (peraltro in modo troppo sommario per essere esaustivo) e troppo poco sulle imprese sportive. Deludente.

[Kate McMurray · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little timely reading. I liked the book, but I expected more sports talk, frankly. The book is a pretty broad overview of the history of the games, but tends to focus more on the host cities and staging the game and less on the sports. (Which is to say, significant historic Olympians get named checked, but the sports themselves are mostly relegated to a few paragraphs)

So, I've been kind of obsessed with the Olympics since a school project I did in middle school around the time of the 1992 winter games. I realize as an adult that a lot of what makes the games compelling is the carefully constructed image we're presented by the media. And still, the last two weeks, I've been basically glued to my TV.

In fact, I've been consuming Olympics-related media like it's breakfast cereal for the last few weeks, so there was a lot in this book I already knew—Hitler created a lot of the ceremonial stuff we associate with the Olympics, like the torch relay and the bombastic opening ceremony; the IOC is rife with corruption; hosting the Olympics is becoming increasingly untenable—but there was some interesting information, too. The IOC has pretty much always been corrupt. The end of the amateur requirement in the Olympics was probably a good thing, despite the modern Olympics' founders intentions, because it allowed athletes to make a living at their sports. Doping (and gender testing!) has been an issue as far back as the 1930s.

The book does not end optimistically, but it's hard to fault the conclusion. The increasing cost of staging the games and (I learned from a documentary I watched a couple of weeks ago) IOC members demanding perks and kickbacks mean that fewer cities are even going to bid on the Game. Protest of the games also tends to deter the IOC, and Western cities bidding on the games have been full of protest the last few years. Thus we end up with Olympics in countries with authoritarian governments. (All the better to keep protestors at bay, not for nothing.) Which is problematic, because the games then support states like Russia and China, tacitly supporting their human rights abuses, among other things.

Actually, Bill Simmons joked on his show last week that we should just have the Olympics rotate between London, LA, and Tokyo, and that's actually something I've seen others argue. Designating one (or a few rotating) host cities basically stops city officials from bribing the IOC to win hosting bids, and would significantly decrease the mounting cost of building new infrastructure to host the games, since presumably the venues would all already exist.

Anyway. Interesting read. Not a lot of depth, but if you want a good overview on how the modern games came about, how they've developed over the years, and what their future might be, it's worth a read. I enjoyed the author's wry tone; his criticism can be biting, but there's a winky sarcasm to some of his arguments, too.

[Laura Hall · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed how thorough this book was - everything from the major players involved in the formation of our modern Olympic games, to descriptions of places and events that happened in the last 150 years of Olympic history. Goldblatt also included really interesting, and at times, humorous, anecdotes about athletes and events.

Though I think the strength of this book is in its thorough coverage of the topic, it is also my largest complaint. I don't think it was TOO detailed, I just wish the author would have organized the Olympic history topically instead of chronologically. I realize that history makes more sense in chronology, but I find it much more interesting when it' is organized thematically or topically (i.e. here's all the stories about language confusion causing an issue, or all the stories about nations participating or not participating and why). That may just be a personal issue, though. Overall, a great, informative, worthwhile read for fans of nonfiction, fans of the Olympics, or fans of history!

[Joanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned a lot from reading it, but the book was not organized well. Also I got pretty fed up by the author's increasingly cynical attitude by the end.

[Liz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too academic on a subject I am only mildly interested. Attempted in January 2019.

[Elda Mengisto · Rating 4 out of 5]

"It was not quite Coubertin's intention to create a global stage on which battles for equality and inclusion along the line of class, ethnicity, gender, disability and sexuality might be fought out. Nor, even in his most ebullient moments, did he imagine the Olympic movement and its games as a place for collective delirium, reflection, or laughter, but despite everything the Olympics continues to offer both"

David Goldblatt discusses how the Olympics evolved in "The Games", a wide-ranging history of how the Olympics turned from a simple revival of ancient rituals to a multi-billion dollar enterprise. Over the course of 100+ years, the Olympics faced global warfare, boycotts, and the day-to-day politics which afflicts the host cities and how they approach the games. Goldblatt also covers the social movements which influence who's included, such as women, the disabled, and the working class.

Each part delves with a different time period of the games, and how they evolved in that subset. With the first part, one thing which surprised me was how there were already other attempts to revive the ancient Olympics--"Soustos was the first to call for a revival fo the gamers, Coubertin was the first to bind that notion to some form of internationalism and make it happen, but both ideas emerged from a long and bizarre encounter between European modernity and an ancient religious festival..." Even the ending of the first Olympics was something I've never heard about--having faded away rather than be fully banned in 392 AD. The behind the scenes of the first Olympics was a bit chaotic, but showed what could be done.

What had surprised me was how bourgeois were the first games--the question of amateurism aside, the new Olympic movement was born out of the upper classes and had a particular rooting in the elite. "In a world more connected than ever before, there was imperial expansion abroad, yet peace between the major powers..." (55) It played into the worlds' fairs (which made the Olympics themselves expand through several months!), but it was more emphasized after the First World War, where social movements entangled with sports to form their own athletic federations, and sport would be used "as the international language of peace and solidarity" (134). With these alternatives, I wondered about what if the IOC was based on working class ideals--would they reflect society in all its forms?

One thing which always stood out to me was how the Olympics were intertwined with the politics of the day, which always defies its "apolitical nature", and at the same time, tries to make itself an ideal. A notable example is with the Berlin Games in 1936, in which the IOC is assured that German Jews would be able to compete, but that Olympic truce wasn't able to hold after that. Before those games were held, boycotts were held, though in the end, they were ultimately smothered. What also didn't help was the spectacle in which the German show emerged, notably with Olympia. On the other hand, the Seoul games, which was initially tied with its regime, it "marked the beginning of a new, more democratic and open era in South Korean life" (324)

I love how Goldblatt delves into the different social aspects; what also stood out were how those themes also influenced how the games evolved. For the 1932 and 1936 games, we see the Olympics become more of a spectacle; in the 1960s, we see countries use them to showcase a new vision of themselves. In the 1990s, we see the end of amateurism, which allowed for tennis players and the Dream Team to compete; with the turn of the 21st century, we see further bribery to host the games. It feels all kaleidoscopic and surreal, and while the Olympics are primarily focused on sports, its evolution is just as intriguing.

As we get to the end, including the darker parts of the modern-day Olympics, I wonder how Goldblatt would comment on the 2020 games. It seemed peaceful at first, but plans changed because of Covid-19; the fact that many Japanese people wanted the games canceled despite the initial postponement was telling in where it was going to go. Over time, we also see hosting the games become less lucrative, to the point where they decided on the 2024 and 2028 hosts simultaneously and there are more anti-Olympic rallies. How do we approach this spectacle in the future? And how could it be a symbol of something better?

"The Games" are not a play-by-play on the different sports involved, but is something deeper, in that its an ideal pushing back against reality. It's a world onto itself, filled with interesting twists and turns, as well as evolution. Sometimes, the prose is a bit dry, but it's clear Goldblatt does his research, and it shows.

[Brian Hamilton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would like to use the word “comprehensive” as it was a decently-sized mammoth of a book, however, outside of the first chapter or two it took a pessimistic turn, and the events were almost getting predictably described.

The Games before the Games and Coubertin’s visions, along with the Athens 1896 part of the book had me intrigued. Felt like I was going to learn a good amount on the history of sports and their globalization. I enjoyed the early part of the book and overall optimistic attitude towards a festival of sports.

Even the World’s Fair section was fun, but started the trend of “they were way behind schedule on construction”, “it costed more than the initial budget”, Paris 1900 having no clear Olympic notation and had the games spread throughout half the year.

Very little to note on the 1920, 1924, 1928 Olympics, all taking place in Western Europe and nothing spectacular happening.

Los Angeles was the star of the book in my opinion, revolutionary in 1932 and overall a clean read in 1984 with the Soviet Bloc missing from counter-protest from 4 years prior. It does have me excited for 2028 Olympics.

The rest of the book has almost a posey attitude towards the evolution of the Olympics, and only really mentions the bad parts of the Olympics, which from a spectator perspective is of great spectacle and has me having withdrawals when the games are over. I’m not saying the book should champion the Olympics, but it would be nice to hear them give it some props, after all you wrote a 450 page book about it.

It certainly had a European bias, and some anti-capitalist remarks, how dare the Olympics try to get funding from advertisers!

It glazes past both the Munich Massacre and the Centennial Park Bombing in Atlanta, despite being heavy-handed in political talks outside of those.

The athletes themselves were mentioned only if they absolutely had to, like some of the Dream Team members, Bolt, Phelps, Owens, Lewis, unless there was some political scandal or activist showcase. I thought early on, the reason for what sports were included, and when, received some explanation, but it fell off later on, and just thrown in marking them as additions.

It honestly got to a point where the author seems to not the like the Olympics, and is an opposition to everything it has become. This is not a book of celebration, it’s a book of someone telling places not to host the Olympics, because they’ll spend more than they wanted and dangerous protests are sure to happen, almost completely missing the point that the Olympics are a CELEBRATION OF SPORT! IS THAT NOT WHAT ITS FOR?

Maybe I should’ve read reviews first, which would’ve told me it’s not much about the sports itself, but more about what Baron de Coubertin had for breakfast, or that China was corrupt (really?), or that the Olympics needed infrastructure (over and over and over again).

I gained some knowledge at least, but I would’ve learned it much more efficiently via Wikipedia or YouTube videos.
Wasn’t what I thought the book was about so I’ll give it some leeway, because, hey, that’s my fault I guess.

3.3/5

[Alex of Yoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always loved watching the Olympics, ever since I was a kid! I'm the rare fan who prefers the winter over the summer Olympics, and I'm always sure to leave the tv running whenever the games are on, even though I don't really watch any other sports. I've always wondered about how the Olympics became a thing, and this book explains that in great macro-detail!

The book is a comprehensive history of the modern Olympics, from its conception in the 1800s (loosely based off of what little we understand of the ancient Greek games) up to 2015 just before the Rio 2016 Olympics. It follows the history of each Olympic event and how it affected and was affected by the global politics and culture of the era until it became the media behemoth that we know today.

I really liked the birds-eye-view of global history through the Olympic lens. It really brought home how interconnected we truly all are and how much one country's choices can affect all the others. I appreciated too just the depth of knowledge! It really was everything I was looking for, giving an overview of each Olympic era, the politics of the time, the evolution of the IOC, and how the various global wars and economics had an impact, as well as touching on a few stories of exceptional performances by various athletes. It also does not shy away from the darker side of the Olympics from racism and sexism to blatant financial corruption and waste. I appreciated the way it urged the reader to think more critically about these big, global events and the good that they are accomplishing (or not accomplishing) in their host countries, and about the dangers of leaving certain organizations unchecked. It definitely opened my eyes to the blatant hubris that we all collectively suffer from regardless of time period or country.

It can be a little dry in places, and I really think it could have been organized better. At the very least, each chapter needed a subtitle, not just the section titles, because it sometimes felt like you were being dropped into a chapter without much sense of what the focus was going to be or how it related to what you just read. It took me half of the book to realize that there is an organizational rhythm to it, and I think chapter titles would have helped immensely (also, the chapter on Athens 2004 is in the totally wrong section)! I would also love an updated version because this version stops just before Rio, and I want to know how the pandemic and the athlete mental health movement have affected things since then (as well as the retirement of IOC president Bach).

Overall, it's a pretty good history of the Olympics! It ends on a somewhat sour note, but that's history for you, and I think the issues it brings up are important for us to be aware of, especially if a city bids to host the games. We need to find a way to be more environmentally, socially, and fiscally responsible when it comes to hosting these games because I think they can really do a lot to bring us together as a globe, but at what cost? If you're an Olympics fan and/or history buff, definitely give this a go.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a rather misleading book. While it says to be a history of the Olympics, it almost totally focuses on the Summer games, and the few mentions of the Winter events (a couple pages at most for specific games) are so minor it may have well just not even tried to touch on them. It also doesn't focus on the games themselves: there is almost no mention of athletic prowess, no summary of highlights from the games, and even mention of athlete names is quite limited. It also isn't really sure what to cover on the Olympics: while the first part is a look at the organizational struggles of the games and how Coubertain tried to get them going, and how they tried to establish a distinct name in the face of more prominent events like World Fairs and the First World War, the last part (from about 1992 on) is overtly critical of nearly everything done by the Olympics, from the treatment of the local people to environmental issues, to massive spending. As such the book is all over the place, and really hard to accurately describe.

It would have been better if Goldblatt kept up the theme he started with: a rather formal, semi-academic look at the Olympics from a business standpoint would have been quite fine and appropriate here, and if that remained the theme (showing how the various cities were chosen, the obstacles faced by the hosts, how the games have ballooned into a huge financial mess that no one wants to deal with anymore) he would have had a great book. If he wanted to be overtly critical of the Olympics, as he does for the last few chapters, that would have been fine too, if it was consistent.

But this didn't quite do either, and it leaves out quite a bit. While he starts discussing how the games were supposed to be strictly amateur affairs, a means to keep out working-class people and allow only "gentlemen" to complete (and specifically no women), he just casually mentions the acceptance of professionalism, as if there was not a huge debate over amateurism versus professionalism that went on for decades, and saw massive controversy over the introduction of professional athletes (the quasi-professional Communist athletes are mentioned, but not given the proper analysis). And to largely ignore the Winter Olympics is an unusual choice, especially as they are nominally mentioned throughout (chapters lead with years of games, and note both Summer and Winter). There is also not a mention of the switch to having Summer and Winter in different years, which is obviously a huge thing to note.

For someone looking at the background of the Olympics, meaning the very early background as in how the modern games started, this is great. It also could be a good introduction to the business side of things, but it is not a book one reads if they want to hear about Jesse Owens' four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin games, or Ben Johnson's disqualification for steroid use in 1988 Seoul (both are mentioned, but not much more than this), or any other athletic feat, especially anything to do with the Winter games.

[Shawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite disappointing. There is some interesting and useful information; especially about the early games and the 19th century context that the Olympic revival comes out of. But as it gets further on; the book suffers. Frankly, it is probably trying to do and say too much in too little space. There is no overarching theme or narrative; no through line, that connects the chapters. There are some focal points; but these are not as well developed as they could be; and sometimes forced as the author tries to shoe horn in all the games of a specific time frame into the focus. But, as often as not, these focuses get lost in the details. The author tends to spend more time on the planners (and their backgrounds) than the games themselves. The latter half is almost entirely focused on the broader sociological and economic contexts of the host cities and games with very little discussed about the games themselves. There is only a tiny bit about Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt, for example, when discussing the Summer Games in 2008. A good chunk of the Rio games is taken up by a discussion of the Brazilian presidential impeachment and surrounding scandals. Also, the closer to our own era we get, the more the authors particular political biases come through, muddying the analysis.

The subtitle of the book is the “A Global History of the Games” but it is not at clear what is particularly global about this history. Obviously, it is global, since the Olympics is global, but beyond that, I am not sure what they are trying to get at with that.

There is also a kind of elitist aesthetics expressed throughout. Inevitable, Olympic projects, such as buildings, slogans, or mascots, are described as kitschy, banal, vacuous, or ugly. There is a lot of sneering at the consumerism around the Olympics—which seems to run counter to the author’s concerns about the IOC’s long history of clinging to 19th century amateurism.

There are some errors as well; the most egregious being when he inexplicably labels the Christian identity nationalist, Eric Rudolph, the terrorist responsible for the Atlanta Olympics pipe bomb, a libertarian.

Overall the author’s cynicism and elitism get in the way of the valid criticisms of Olympic projects. As this and other histories show, there are many problems and criticisms to be made, but this work doesn’t do the work necessary to develop these, explain why they are concerns, or offer much in the way of alternatives. In most cases, the reality of the games is implicitly compared to some unstated majestic and idyllic system where the Olympics could take place without these problems.

Furthermore, as critical as the author is of the vision of Coubertin’s Olympics, the author actually seems to in a way share this utopian vision of pure sport. But since the reality of the Olympics can never live up to this vision; it gets lots of righteous scorn and rhetorical sneering.

[Brandon Abraham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Missing the excitement of Tokyo 2020? David Goldblatt’s The Games is certainly no substitute for the event itself, but if you at all interested in the intersection of sports, culture, and politics represented by the Olympic Movement, then this just might adequately tide you over until next summer.

Goldblatt, mainly known for his work writing on soccer, offers incisive analysis which downplays what could very easily have been mere summary of results or endless iterations of worn cliches such as the “gifts” of athletic prowess or “winners and losers” narratives which plague the genre and which refuse to see sports as embedded in larger historical contexts. He takes the modern Olympics seriously as a cultural product, one loosely rooted in visions of the ancient games of the distant past, but far more firmly in ideas which were current during the Victorian Era such as the games ethic and the equating of athleticism with moral virtue. Interesting anecdotes abound. We’re told, for example, how Pierre de Coubertin, who contributed so much to the revival of the Games, rewrote his life story to make himself appear as a lifelong Hellenophile when, in reality, he’d visited Olympia only twice and had strained relationships with Greek nationalists who were intent on having a larger sway over the future of the movement and who did not take kindly to Coubertin’s internationalist appropriation of the Games. While this discussion could easily become overly moralizing, Goldblatt is able to handle the difficult balance between bringing clarity to an issue, while also maintaining a steady narrative pace.

From here, Goldblatt moves through the Games themselves. Notably, excepting the controversial Vancouver 2010, the Winter Games receive short shrift, but, at over five hundred pages, it is easy to see why. In his scathing critique of Atlanta 1996, Goldblatt observes “Atlanta was not the first Olympic city to declare war on its homeless citizens or to try to hide its shack cities” but these efforts shocked the organizers themselves who were “amazed and alarmed to discover the depopulated parts of downtown were a desert, deliberately engineered to lack shade, entirely bereft of water fountains.” This is mixed in with more commonly-discussed materials such as Centennial Park bombings and the record-breaking feats of Michael Johnson in the 200 and 400 meters.

Overall, The Games makes for rewarding reading for those interested in a more thorough, serious perspective.

Highly Recommended

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written by David Goldblatt, a British sports historian, "The Games" is a one-volume history of the modern Olympics.

Goldblatt's history is a comprehensive one that unfolds in a generally linear manner in which each section usually covers a particular decade. The overarching emphasis is on the organizational history and development of the Olympic movement and the movement's attempts to grapple with broad social forces, such as the rise of women's athletics and the increasing commercialization of sports. As a result, Goldblatt pays comparatively little attention to the individual athletic results achieved at specific games. For example, the discussion on the 1964 Tokyo games focuses mainly on the ways in which the games were used to catalyze the city's (and the larger country's) reconstruction following World War II.

The story Goldblatt ultimately tells is how the idiosyncratic (even for the time) ideas of a 19th-century French aristocratic who viewed sports as an amateurish endeavor involving people drawn from the proper classes evolved into a global celebration of capitalism. Over the years, the Olympic movement has survived a number of near-death experiences--some of which were outside of its control (e.g., world wars), others of its own making (e.g., corruption scandals, exploding costs for host cities)--and has adjusted to stay relevant to changing social trends.

Goldblatt's book is richly researched and is a relatively straightforward read. For instance, Goldblatt has not a single positive thing to say about the 1996 Atlanta games, and the chapter devoted to that Olympiad is delightfully scathing, in part because the author has no patience for the "New South" rhetoric long peddled by the city's civic leaders. (Goldblatt actually has relatively little positive to say about any of the games ever held in the United States.)

At the same time, it is often not quite clear why Goldblatt devotes more attention to some Olympics more than others. Additionally, the Winter Olympics receive scant attention, with a few exceptions like the 2002 Salt Lake City games, which were marred by a corruption scandal. Lastly, while not the author's fault, the book's production values are rather low, ranging from the relatively cheap paper used in what is a relatively expensive hardcover edition to frequent errors in typography.

Overall, I enjoyed "The Games" and found it an interesting, quick read. And it does identify many of the key themes that have defined the Olympics movement over the decades. Yet the book may not be for everyone. Those more interested in the actual athletic accomplishments may not like the stress on institutional history, while those interested in institutional history may find the coverage too superficial. That said, the book does function nicely as an accessible, current, one-volume history of the games.

[Chase Parsley · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an only okay history of the Olympics. Most of all, it was a critical investigation of the institution of the Olympics. The athletes rarely get any attention - there was barely one page on mega-stars like Jesse Owens and Jim Thorpe, and only a paragraph on starts like Katarina Witt and Michael Johnson. There are some nuggets of inspiration sprinkled throughout, but Goldblatt focusing on digging up the ugly aspects, and he does not let up.

As it is a long book, there is much to discuss: the early obsession with amateurism, competition for venues, scandals (although surprisingly I thought there would be more on the steroids/PEDs and gender controversies), and most of all the graft and corruption behind it all. By the time the reader gets to the Olympiads of the 1980s, the text comes off as increasingly, if not almost entirely negative. the 1984 LA games were profitable but sold out to corporations in all ways imaginable, Greece and Brazil were disasters, the Beijing and Sochi games existed to bolster cruel regimes, Beijing and Rio forcibly relocated millions of people to create room (Beijing forcibly moved 1.5 million people!), and more. This is all important interesting, but I felt like there was not enough emphasis on the positive aspects of the games. Isn't the inspiration, the athletes, the spectacle, etc. worth something too?

Also, the book goes in chronological order, and each Olympiad is profiled (each summer Olympiad gets one chapter and the winter games get lumped together by decade). It would make more sense if the chapters were labeled for the Olympiads, but they are only titled "One" "Two" and so forth. Some chapters are better than others, but it was an admirable effort to cover such a long history.

In the end, if you want to read about inspiration and Olympic greats, look somewhere else. In my head I was looking for an inspiring, coffee table-like book, but instead I read one that focuses on the corruption of the institution of the Olympics. Not a bad book, but it just wasn't what I wanted.

[Scott Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Audiobook) This work attempts to chronicle the history of the modern Olympic Games. Goldblatt starts not in Ancient Greece, but in the centuries before the start of the modern games in 1896. The Greek example is modeled in various forms throughout Europe before the late 1800s, but it is only in the 1880s that the movement to restart the modern Olympics begins. The start is vastly different from what we see today. In some instances, participants could all but walk up and join in the events, provided they were of the right class/status in society. The first Olympics were the domain of the wealthy white affluent of European and American society.

From there, the work goes in chronological order to highlight how the games evolved from 1896 to 2016. Goldblatt also discusses how women and POC got involved in the games, but not without extensive struggle and push back from the establishment. He also notes how the Winter Games came into being. His insight into the Games since the end of the Cold War were especially insightful. Having live in Atlanta during the 1996 Games, I knew that some aspects of it were poorly planned and executed, but I had no ideal how much of a cluster they were to set up, organize and execute. The Games continue to ying and yang between desired status symbol and pariahs that no sane city would want to touch.

It would be interesting to see a follow up to account for the 2018 and postponed 2020 Games. As corporate/corrupt/expensive as they have become, we still follow them, the modern manifestations of national pride and competition. Even as the work tends to jump around in its organization, there is much to gain from these pages for the sports/history enthusiasts. Not for everyone, but if you are in the right mood, the work (rated the same for audiobook as e-copy/hard copy) could be just right for a reader.

[Sumudu Perera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started reading this book in the leadup to the 2024 Paris Olympics. Fascinating reading about the multiple failed attempts at launching the Modern Olympic Games, with the father of the modern games Coubertin finally being able to launch it in 1896.

Really fascinating, from the ancient Hellenistic period and then the multiple failed revival attempts across the late 1700s/early 1800s, each one failing. Interesting especially with the Paris Olympics this year, to see one such failed attempts was during Revolutionary Paris where they were changing to the metric system and thought of the idea to do the Olympics every 4 years on leap years!

Interesting seeing all the bureaucratic changes and decisions around the Olympics over the years, with the different eras and political decisions (eg politics over the Berlin 1936 Olympics, to the US Russia Cold War era 90s Olympics). Also interesting to see how the early 1900s games saw success with the propagation of World Fairs (some controversially having games displaying “savages”)

A bit hurt they did not mention Nikki Webster for 2000 Olympics or mention how successful that games was 😂

Overall great history of the games with good use of historical context weaved into the story. In particular, interesting to see how the Games evolved through racism, sexism, and a move from purism for amateur sport to become commercialised. I personally enjoyed all the in-text referencing even on the Audiobook, showed the book was very well researched, even if it interrupted the flow every few minutes.

I must say it was sounding pessimistic as to the Games’s future by the end but that is understandable as the book was published in 2016, before the near disaster of the 2020 (2021) Tokyo games due to the pandemic, and then the miraculous success of the recent Paris games.

Overall 4/5 - great primer in Olympics history!

[Annika · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Games is an engrossing, very well-told narrative history of the Olympic movement. If you're looking for an Olympics trivia book, this isn't it. It's not a comprehensive fact book, and the athletes and sports themselves take up only a small portion of the book. Instead, Goldblatt picks a theme for a group of Olympiads and then explores that theme through various examples at each games. The focus is on the founding ideology of the Olympics, how they've been used for a wide variety of social and political purposes, and how the Olympics has changed with changes in society.

This is not a celebratory book. Goldblatt looks unflinchingly at how the Olympics can bolster violence and nationalism just as easily as it can promote harmony and peace, and he details the massive corruption that has plagued the IOC for decades and the horrible economic, environmental, and social impacts the Games have had on their host cities. Although I was somewhat aware of all of these problems, I have to admit that this shook my faith in the idea of the Olympics. I am one of those people who adore the Olympics and become utterly obsessed with them. Although I'm not an emotional person, I usually tear up during the ceremonies at the thought of people from all over the world coming together for peaceful competition and living together in harmony for a few weeks. Ultimately, I guess I still believe that the Olympics are a force for good--or at least, they have the potential to be so. (The Langston Hughes poem "Let America Be America Again" kept running through my head while reading the final chapters.) The ideals of the Olympics never have actually been, but there are still those who really do believe in them, and I still believe that that belief matters and is worth pursuing.

[C.E. · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm not sure what the point of this book was, and I'm not sure the author knew either. The only sort of running theme in the 400+ pages is "hey, the Olympics are corrupt", but even there the thread is kind of lost. Things that one might think is important in a book about the "global history of the Olympics" (the games, things that happened at the games, the people involved in the actual games) are barely mentioned; the narrative jumps randomly through time; the Winter Games are also incredibly slighted -- the switch to the two-year Games isn't even mentioned at all. The Munich Massacre is given maybe three paragraphs, one of which is poking fun at the police for trying to sneak up on the hostage-takers while being broadcast on live TV; the bombing of the Atlanta games is given exactly one paragraph, which is written like the editors forced the author to mention it, and is pretty much "yeah, someone bombed the Olympics, someone died, a bunch of others got hurt, it was sad. Now let me tell you how Coca-Cola profited off of this..." Maybe a dozen or so athletes are mentioned until the 21st century, when a few more get name-checked in a couple of paragraphs.
I really just dragged myself through this, and was debating between one and two stars, because it's at least thoroughly researched; two stars, however, would make it sound like I almost considered recommending this book, which I don't.