Synopses & Reviews
The Olympic ideal and the Olympic Games stand as symbols of global cooperation, international understanding and the bonding of individuals through the medium of sports. However, throughout the twentieth century, Olympic rhetoric was often confronted by a different reality. The Games have regularly been faced by crises that have threatened the spirit of Olympism and even the Games themselves. Given the many changes that have occurred in the Olympic Games during the past century it seems reasonable to ask if this global event has a future and, if so, what form it might take. With this larger issue in mind, the authors of Post-Olympism? ask probing questions about the following: the infamous 1936 Olympics the effect of new technologies on the Games the future impact of the 2008 Beijing Games on China and of China on the Olympics the local and regional impact of the Sydney green Olympics the Games and globalization Disneyfication racism drug abuse The book provides a useful overview of the ongoing significance of the Olympics and will be essential reading for anyone with a serious interest in the Games.
Synopsis
The Olympic Games symbolize global cooperation, international understanding and the bonding of individuals through sports. However, throughout the history of the modern games, the Olympic ideal has often been confronted by a different reality. Crises ranging from drug abuse to racism and accusations of Disneyfication have threatened the spirit of Olympism and even the Games themselves.
Post-Olympism? is the first book to provide a useful overview of the ongoing significance of the Olympics. Is Olympism relevant today? Have more frequent and tightly organized events such as World Cups and world championships superseded the Olympics to become the great festivals of sport? What effect will new technologies have on the Games? This is a timely book that both re-evaluates this event's checkered past and assesses whether it has a future.
About the Author
John Bale is Visiting Professor of Sports Studies, University of Aarhus, Denmark and Professor of Sports Geography, Keele University. He is the co-editor of
Sport and Postcolonialism (Berg Publishers, 2003).
Mette Krogh Christensen is Assistant Professor in Sports Studies, Department of Sport Science, University of Aarhus.
Table of Contents
The Future of Multi-Sport Mega Events--Richard Cashman * Troping Aloning: A Historian's View of Olympic Scholarship--Douglas Booth * Citius, Altius, Fortius: A Critique and a Reinterpetation--Sigmund Loland * "What's the Difference between Propaganda for Tourism or for a Political Regime?" The 1936 Olympics in World Perspective--Arnd Krüger * Accelerating Olympism: The Poetics and Problematics of Nano, Virtual, and Cyborg Sport Technologies--Synthia Sydnor * The Aesthetic Dimensions of Sport--Soren Damkjaer * Drugs and the Olympics in the Context of Aesthetics--Verner Moller * Olympic Legacies: Sport, Space and the Practices of Everyday Life--Douglas Brown * Olympism, Post-Humanism and the Spectacle of Race--Ben Carrington * China and Olympism--Susan Brownell * The Global, the Popular and the Inter-Popular: Olympic Sport between Market, State and Civil Society--Henning Eichberg * Laying Olympism to Rest--Kevin Wamsley * Sportive Nationalism in an Age of Globalization--John Hoberman * Making the World Safe for Global Capital? The Sydney 2000 Olympics--Helen Lenskyj * The Disneyfication of the Olympics: Selling the Spectacle--Alan Tomlinson