One of the early concepts of the Olympic Games was to include "intercalated" Games every four years between the normal cycle, and to hold these Games in Athens, the ancestral home of the Olympics. In 1906 the first, and only one, of these games was held. Occurring only two years after the St. Louis Games of 1904 and two years before the London Games of 1908, the Athens Games were considered by many not to be "official"; social and political forces prevented continuation of the intercalation cycle in 1910 and later. Yet these Games were surprisingly successful and helped guarantee the survival of the modern Olympics. This book, fourth in the series on the early Olympics, presents all the data on 29 nation and city-state participants in more than a dozen events in the Athens Games. Scores and descriptions are provided, and many historical errors and omissions in other sources are corrected. Appendices include the published program for the Games, the actual schedule followed during the Games, and country-by country listings of all participating athletes.

Olympic Cities provides the first full overview of the changing relationship between cities and the Olympic events since 1896. With eighteen specially commissioned and original essays written by a team of distinguished international authors, it explores the historical experience of staging the Olympics from the point of view of the host city. A thought-provoking analysis of the relationship between Olympic festivals and urban spectacle it: provides overviews of the urban impact of the four component Olympic festivals – the Summer Games, Winter Games, Cultural Olympiads and the Paralympics comprises systematic surveys of four key aspects of activity involved in staging the Olympics – finance, place promotion, managing spectacle and urban regeneration consists of nine chronologically arranged portraits of host cities, from 1936 to 2012, with particular emphasis on the first four Summer Olympic games of the twenty-first century. As controversy over the growing size and expense of the Olympics continues unabated, this book’s incisive and timely assessment of the Games’ development and the complex agendas that host cities attach to the event will be essential reading not only for urban and sports historians, urban geographers, planners and all concerned with understanding the relationship between cities and culture, but for anyone with an interest in the staging of mega-events.

Providing a full overview of the changing relationship between cities and the Olympic events, this substantially revised and enlarged edition builds on the success of its predecessor. Its coverage takes account of important new scholarship as well as adding reflections on the experience of staging Beijing 2008 and Vancouver 2010, the state of preparations for London 2012, and the plans for the Games scheduled for Sochi in 2014 and Rio de Janeiro 2016. The book is divided into three parts that provide overviews of the urban legacy of the four component Olympic festivals, systematic surveys of five key aspects of activity involved in staging the Olympics and ten chronologically arranged portraits of host cities. As controversy over the growing size and expense of the Olympics continues, this timely assessment of the Games’ development and the complex agendas that host cities attach to the event will be essential reading for urban and sports historians, urban geographers, planners and all concerned with understanding the relationship between cities and culture. Olympic Cities is one of the Routledge books of the month for December 2010