PhotoIf Howard Zinn gave us “A People’s History of the United States,” Goldblatt provides a people’s history of the Olympics. But the greater difficulty is that a thorough Olympic history must also be something of a world history, with tentacles sprawling far beyond the Games themselves. Advertisement Continue reading the main storyIn trying to write a narrative of the entire Olympics, Goldblatt, the author of a global history of soccer, has taken on a challenge worthy of a marathoner. And in 1896, with the staging of the first modern Olympic Games, Coubertin got his wish. The true history of the Games is a far cry from the platitude-laden, sepia-toned nostalgia pumped out by the International Olympic Committee and Olympic sponsors.

Source: International New York Times July 18, 2016 09:22 UTC