Onward to the Olympics: Historical Perspectives on the Olympic Games.

Bonnie J. White is a Ph.D. candidate in History Department at McMaster
University.

Onward to the Olympics is comprised of 22 papers that consider the Olympics in two historical contexts. The first set of essays examine the origins of the Games in antiquity, and provide a historical account of the Games as well as a discussion of the cultural importance of athletics in 6th-century Greece. Paul Christesen traces the transformation of the Games from a component of elite life to the centrality of sports in civic identity for all levels of society. In addition, Donald Kyle provides an interesting examination of the role of gender at Olympia, not only in terms of female athletes but also in terms of female spectators. One issue that the contributors in Part 1 struggle with is the paucity of sources. Although they acknowledge this shortcoming, our perspective on the early Olympics nevertheless remains limited.

Part 2 examines the evolution of the Olympics from a contest involving thirteen countries and fewer than three hundred athletes at the turn of the 20th century to the sporting spectacle that exists today. Issues such as religious and political ideology, media coverage, and ethnicity influenced the evolution of the Games in modern times. Robert Barney examines the development of the Olympic Games from a sideshow performance at larger cultural festivities to a politically charged event. As in ancient Greece, the Olympics fostered intense rivalries: Nazi rule in Germany (Berlin 1936), the Palestinian-Israeli conflict (Munich 1972), apartheid in South Africa (Montreal 1976), and the Cold War (Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984). However, Courtney Mason poignantly points out that the Olympic Games have become a cultural institution capable of inducing social and political change, which fits nicely with Tim Elcombe’s work on the future of the Olympics and the importance of studying the Games as a cultural institution. As a cultural event, the Olympic Games provides a forum for discussion about the possibilities for the future of humanity in a tumultuous world.

As a collection of essays, Onward to the Olympics has high points and low points. In short, Part 2 is much stronger than Part 1, primarily because it engages with a broader cultural and historical project.