Short description:

This is the first book to unpack the history and significance of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, the frontispiece of the most watched event on Earth.

Long description:

This is the first book to unpack the history and significance of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, the frontispiece of the most watched event on Earth. 

Covering the period from the Moscow Olympics in 1980 to Tokyo 2020, the book examines when, how and why the Olympic opening ceremonies? artistic programme became the multi-act spectacles seen today. It argues that the embedded nationalistic, ethnic and environmental discourses contained in opening ceremonies have much to tell us about national narratives, memory and myth-making, about the history of representation, and about how the Olympics and the spectacle of mega-events are prisms through which local and global socio-political issues are refracted, from the climate crisis and the struggle for minority rights to the emergence of a multi-polar world. 

This book is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in the sociology, culture, history or politics of sport and events, geopolitics or performance studies.

Table of Contents:

Introduction,  Part I: The Cold War and the Emergence of a New Theatrical Genre,  1. Moscow 1980,  2. Los Angeles 1984,  3. Seoul 1988,  Part II: The End of History and the Turn of the Century,  4. Barcelona 1992,  5. Atlanta 1996,  6. Sydney 2000,  Part III: Eastern and Western Perspectives on the Spirit?s Evolution,  7. Athens 2004,  8. Beijing 2008,  Part IV: Modernity?s Apocalyptical Past, Present and Future,  9. London 2012,  10. Rio de Janeiro 2016,  11. Tokyo 2020,  Conclusion