Synopsis
Winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award.
From the ancient Greeks to today’s festival of sponsors – this is the definitive sporting, social and political history of the Olympic Games.
'An excellent, pacy, anecdote-studded history of the modern Games' – The Times
The Olympic Games have become the greatest show on earth. But how was such a ritual...
Details
11 January 2018544 pages
9781447298878Imprint: Pan
Reviews
Financial Times, Books of the Year 2016 'Goldblatt has become arguably the premier Anglophone sports historian. Unflinching before millennia worth of material, he tells the Olympic story from the ancient Greeks to today’s festival of sponsors. This book is illuminating, erudite, fair-minded, readable, told at a cracking pace, and put the Games in their social and political context.'Financial Times, Books of the Year 2016
'If reading Goldblatt often forces confrontation with the ugly reality behind sporting fantasies, his encyclopaedic approach… still retains space for the extraordinary and inspirational in the arena.'Spectator
'Goldblatt has curated a definitive, thoughtful history.'Sport Magazine
'The book is ambitious and might have been daunting but Goldblatt is a well-qualified guide, bring the kind of insight and scale he brought to his heroic history of football, The Ball Is Round.Observer
