The New York Times Book Review - Mary Pilon
The Games is an exhaustively researched account of the modern Olympics…In trying to write a narrative of the entire Olympics, Goldblatt…has taken on a challenge worthy of a marathoner. A book about the scandals alone would risk being biblical in scope. But the greater difficulty is that a thorough Olympic history must also be something of a world history, with tentacles sprawling far beyond the Games themselves. Like a disciplined distance runner, Goldblatt takes an even-paced approach. His is basically an academic survey that spends roughly the same amount of time on each Olympiad. It is based largely on news accounts, academic journals and the official reports of the Games, all presented with the appropriate whiff of skepticism. If Howard Zinn gave us A People's History of the United States, Goldblatt provides a people's history of the Olympics.
From the Publisher
"Fascinating."— Peter Cowie Wall Street Journal
"Nuanced.… [W]ry, philosophical."— Aram Goudsouzian Washington Post
"[A] bracingly debunking history."— David Runciman Guardian
"Goldblatt is a wise, thoughtful, sometimes caustic observer."— Boston Globe
"Elegant and ambitious."— Economist
"[An] excellent, pacy, anecdote-studded history of the modern Games."— Giles Smith The Times (UK)
"A timely and impressively expansive view of arguably the world’s most beloved sporting event.… [Goldblatt] has created the definitive book on the Olympics, which should be on the reading list of anyone with a passion for learning the full story of the Olympic games."— Russell P. Gantos New York Journal of Books
"Tak[es] readers through decades of iconic athleticism, complicated global politics, and increasing commercialism—all of which go into making the Olympic games what they are today."— Bustle
"[A] bracing corrective… [that] retains space for the extraordinary and inspirational in the arena."— David Horspool Spectator
"A tour of world history through the lens of the Olympic Games.… Goldblatt’s account of the history of performance-enhancing drugs is particularly striking."— Charlie Goffen Huffington Post
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2016-06-12
A tour de force history of the Olympics in romanticized myth and politicized reality.As thousands of athletes and hundreds of thousands of spectators and tourists prepare to descend on Brazil for the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games this summer, sports fans are getting a daily dose of information about potentially toxic waters clogged with human waste and tales of how facilities will not be completed on time. This all takes place against a backdrop of political and economic chaos in Brazil. There is nothing new in this intersection of Olympic planning gone awry and controversial political machinations in host countries. Indeed, as Goldblatt (The Game of Our Lives: The English Premier League and the Making of Modern Britain, 2014, etc.) shows in this fantastic history of the Olympics, far more rare were the instances of smooth planning and a lack of political chaos. The author traces the games back to their Hellenic roots, but he also places them in the context of the myths that emerged around them in the 19th century, as various efforts to revive Olympic-style games picked up pace, finally gaining a foothold with French aristocrat Baron Pierre de Coubertin, a self-mythologizing romantic who laid the foundation for many of the Olympic ideals that in most cases embody little more than invented traditions. Goldblatt, best known for his unparalleled books on soccer, has a fine grip on sports in general and an even better understanding of the politics of sport. He shows the myriad ways in which the attempts by International Olympic Committee power brokers to separate sport from politics were themselves deeply entrenched in conservative political mindsets, and he reveals the barrenness of most demands that participating athletes be pure amateurs. Gracefully written and compellingly argued, this is one of the best books of the year and one of the best sports books ever written.
