Olympic Legacies: Intended and Unintended

Political, Cultural, Economic and Educational

J A Mangan editor Mark Dyreson editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd

Published:17th Sep '09

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

This hardback is available in another edition too:

Olympic Legacies: Intended and Unintended cover

For more than a century, the Olympics have been the modern world's most significant sporting event. Indeed, they deserve much credit for globalizing sport beyond the boundaries of the Anglo-American universe, where it originated, into broader global realms. By the 1930s, the Olympics had become a global mega-event that occupied the attention of the media, the interest of the public and the energies of nation-states. Since then, projected by television, funded by global capital and fattened by the desires of nations to garner international prestige, the Olympics have grown to gargantuan dimensions.

In the course of its epic history, the Olympics have left numerous legacies, from unforgettable feats to monumental stadiums, from shining triumphs to searing tragedies, from the dazzling debuts on the world's stage of new cities and nations to notorious campaigns of national propaganda. The Olympics represent an essential component of modern global history. The Olympic movement itself has, since the 1990s, recognized and sought to shape its numerous legacies with mixed success as this book makes clear. It offers ground-breaking analyses of the power of Olympic legacies, positive and negative, and surveys the subject from Athens in 1896 to Beijing in 2008, and indeed beyond.

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

"First published as a special issue of International Journal of the History of Sport, the present collection focuses on how the Olympic Games have affected cities such as Athens, Beijing, and Sydney: it considers the lasting legacies...Mangan (emer., Univ. of Strathclyde, Scotland) and Dyreson (Pennsylvania State Univ.) bring together analyses of both the positive and negative legacies, from the first games of the modern era (Athens, 1896) to the most recent summer games (Beijing, 2008). Summing Up: Highly recommended." -- Choice, July 2010

ISBN: 9780415550161

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 690g

254 pages