It's taken as an article of faith that until Baron Pierre de Coubertin had a brainwave in the early 1890s, no one had thought of putting on an Olympic Games in over a thousand years. Not so. de Coubertin, to use Sir Isaac Newton's phrase, stood on the shoulders of giants.
Chief among those giants was William Penny Brookes, of Much Wenlock, Shropshire, England. From this obscure town, Brookes, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, began an Olympic movement (the games he founded still exist). David C. Young tracks Brookes, and the games (once national in scope) he founded, and Brookes' contacts with and inspiration of de Coubertin.
Young also traces the Athens games, long forgotten, which predated 1896, and another giant, Evangelis Zappas, who gave money and energy to put on these games.
Young also traces the struggle to put on the 1896 Athens games, and gives us a blow by blow account of those games themselves--at which de Coubertin was little thanked. He also gives us a brief, but interesting explanation of why the 1906 Intercalary Olympic Games took place in Athens, and their contribution to the Olympic movement, which in many ways exceeded those of the other early Olympics.
Young sheds light on the background of the modern Olympics, and on figures too long forgotten.
Highly recommended.
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Top reviews from other countries
Gary M. Greenbaum
Fine look at the roots of the modern Olympic movement
Reviewed in the United States on 23 June 2004Verified Purchase
PeriRac
Four Stars
Reviewed in the United States on 24 May 2016Verified Purchase
