The Olympic Games bring together thousands of athletes, competing in over 40 sports, and representing over 200 nations. But that is just the surface, for none of this would be possible without the constant efforts of an incredible organization consisting of tens of thousands of sports lovers united in sports associations, National Olympic Committees, and the International Olympic Committee. The A to Z of the Olympic Movement deals with both levels of the competition: the competitive side and the administrative side. This is accomplished through a bibliography; two chronologies--one tracing the history of the Ancient Olympiad and the other tracing the Modern Games; appendixes providing facts on the Games, the officials, the torchbearers, and the top Olympic medal winners; and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on the major sports, more outstanding athletes, participating countries and numerous bodies in the organization as well as successive generations of officials--starting with the founder, Pierre de Coubertin.

In 1973, Wilson Carey McWilliams (1933Ð2005) published The Idea of Fraternity in America, a groundbreaking book that argued for an alternative to AmericaÕs dominant philosophy of liberalism. This alternative tradition emphasized that community and fraternal bonds were as vital to the process of maintaining political liberty as was individual liberty. McWilliams expanded on this idea throughout his prolific career as a teacher, writer, and activist, promoting a unique definition of American democracy. In The Democratic Soul: A Wilson Carey McWilliams Reader, editors Patrick J. Deneen and Susan J. McWilliams, daughter of the famed intellectual, have assembled key essays, articles, reviews, and lectures that trace McWilliamsÕs evolution as a scholar and explain his often controversial views on education, religion, and literature. The book also showcases his thoughts and opinions on prominent twentieth-century figures such as George Orwell and Leo Strauss. The first comprehensive volume of Wilson Carey McWilliamsÕ collected writings, The Democratic Soul will be welcomed by scholars of political science and American political thought as a long-overdue contribution to the field.

From the first games held in ancient Greece to the cultural extravaganzas of recent years, there have been some incredible and amazing events and milestones in the world of Olympic sports. Now in G is for Gold Medal: An Olympics Alphabet, writer Brad Herzog showcases those athletes and events that not only set sports records but also impacted history and world views. Learn the meaning behind the five interlocking rings featured on the Olympic flag. Cheer on American Jim Thorpe as he won the pentathlon and decathlon at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden, only to lose his medals later. Read how the man dubbed as the "world's laziest high jumper" won the gold in 1968 and later had a jump named after him. All these moments and more are brought to life in G is for Gold Medal. Brad Herzog has written travel and sports books for readers young and old. His books with Sleeping Bear include the best-selling H is for Home Run: A Baseball Alphabet. Brad lives on California's Monterey Peninsula. Doug Bowles has been a freelance illustrator for more than twenty years. His books for Sleeping Bear include One Kansas Farmer: A Kansas Number Book and S is for Sunflower: A Kansas Alphabet. Doug lives in Leawood, Kansas.

Discusses how the winter games related to Norwegian culture and ethos.

The Olympic Movement began with the Ancient Olympic Games, which were held in Greece on the Peloponnesus peninsula at Olympia, Greece. It is not clear why the Greeks instituted this quadrennial celebration in the form of an athletic festival. The recorded history of the Ancient Olympic Games begins in 776 B.C., although it is suspected that the Games had been held for several centuries by that time. The Games were conducted as religious celebrations in honor of the god Zeus, and it is known that Olympia was a shrine to Zeus from about 1000 B.C. In modern time The Olympic Movement attempts to bring all the nations of the world together in a series of multisport festivals, the Olympic Games, seeking to use sport as a means to promote internationalism and peace. This fifth edition of Historical Dictionary of The Olympic Movement covers its history through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 1000 cross-referenced entries on the history, philosophy, and politics of the Olympics, major organizations, the various sports, the participating countries, and especially the athletes. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about The Olympic Movement.

This volume explores sporting mega-events, their social, political, and cultural characters, the value systems that they inscribe and draw on, the claims they make on us and the claims the organisers make for them, the spatial and ethical relationships they create, and the responses of civil societies to them.

A timely, no-holds barred, critical political history of the modern Olympic Games The Olympics have a checkered, sometimes scandalous, political history. Jules Boykoff, a former US Olympic team member, takes readers from the event’s nineteenth-century origins, through the Games’ flirtation with Fascism, and into the contemporary era of corporate control. Along the way he recounts vibrant alt-Olympic movements, such as the Workers’ Games and Women’s Games of the 1920s and 1930s as well as athlete-activists and political movements that stood up to challenge the Olympic machine.

In this open access book the cost and revenue overruns of Olympic Games from Sydney 2000 to PyeongChang 2018 from eight years before the Games to Games‐time are investigated to provide a base for future host cities. The authors evaluated the development of expenditure and revenues of the organizing committees to operate the event, and the investment of taxpayers’ money for Olympic venues (non‐OCOG budget). The study is based on data collected worldwide and is currently the most advanced study on cost and revenue changes of Olympic Games.

Nowadays, sports Mega-events - with the Olympic Games leading the way – go over immense effort to showcase their environmental credentials. With that in mind, this book compares and contrasts the environmental credentials of four Olympic Host cities starting with Sydney 2000, the host of the first Green Summer Olympics, and culminating with London 2012. Setting out a comparative cross-national study that makes extensive use of perspectives offered by environmental sociology, this book showcases the scientific analytical vigour of this sociological sub-discipline. Since in most cases, the linkages between hosting the Games and the environment that are made by the general public and policy-makers are mostly in relation to the regeneration of the host city, this book engages with this type of environmental related contributions that can be made by Olympic Games hosting. Yet, inspired by the emphasis that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) gives on the environmental impact and legacy of Games in terms of the Ecological Modernization (EM) perspective, the book engages with the potential imbued by Olympic Games hosting for the EM of the host nation.

For more than a millennium, the ancient Olympics captured the imaginations of the Greeks, until a Christianized Rome terminated the competitions in the fourth century AD. But the Olympic ideal did not die and this book is a succinct history of the ancient Olympics and their modern resurgence. Classics professor David Young, who has researched the subject for over 25 years, reveals how the ancient Olympics evolved from modest beginnings into a grand festival, attracting hundreds of highly trained athletes, tens of thousands of spectators, and the finest artists and poets.