Celebrate the Spirit: The Olympic Games

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

This entertaining and informative overview of the Olympics contains a
brief history of the ancient Games, an examination of Baron de
Coubertin’s re-creation of the contests, and descriptions of the
various sports that make up the contemporary Games. Enlivening the text
are action photos, reproductions of Games posters, trivia tidbits, and
personal anecdotes. Although the book does justice to the Summer Games,
its treatment of the Winter Games is extremely cursory. The authors
conclude their text by touching on five issues—boycotts, politics,
commercialism, drugs, and cheating—that are threatening the values
upon which de Coubertin based his revival of the Games. Recommended.