The Games: A Global History of The Olympics by David Goldblatt

The Games: A Global History of the Olympics

David Goldblatt

W.W. Norton & Company

At a time when the eyes of the world on focused on Rio, acclaimed sportswriter David Goldblatt takes readers behind the elusive doors of the Olympics, allowing them to experience the games as both sports history and a mirror of social culture.

In "The Games" we learn the history behind the games and its traditions. We also get a warts and all look at the politics behind the games, both on and off the fields of athletic competition. From Hitler’s games of 1936 to the boycotts of Moscow and Los Angeles in the early 1980s and the tragic Munich Games of 1972, Goldblatt brings the synthesis of politics and Olympic sport to the surface with startling clarity.

The Olympics have repeatedly been tainted by the current events of the times. Yet despite the setbacks of World Wars and terrorism, the Olympics serve as a reminder of how important athletic competition is in engendering an understanding of other peoples.

Where Goldblatt medals however, is in delivering a concise history, told without excessive superlatives or outside narratives, of the Games from its humble beginnings to Athens to its current setting in Rio. Beginning in 1896 he takes us through the rather bland early affairs. Then, in the 1930s, things really take off as the Olympics became, more or less, the ones we know today.

However t's is not all bad. There’s the heroism of Jesse Owens, the sheer power of the Dream Team, the perpetual perkiness of Mary Lou Retton and the force of nature that was the Miracle on Ice, all of which testify to the power of the Games to act as a unifying force of inspiration.

Topping it all off is Goldblatt’s notion that the Olympics will always be messy in how the sites are selected and the impact they have on the culture of host nations. As witnessed by Vladimir Putin's active campaigning for the Sochi Winter Olympics of 2014, he recognizes that the Olympics always seem politically contentious while remaining utterly compelling for the citizens of the world.

He also notes that despite all of this inner conflict and global tumult, The Olympics remain  an intoxicating celebration of sports and achievement to the citizens of the world.