Olympic Industry Resistance: Challenging Olympic Power and Propaganda (S U N Y Series on Sport, Culture, and Social Relations) [Hardcover]

Helen Jefferson Lenskyj (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 5, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0791474798 | ISBN-13: 978-0791474792

A critical look at the Olympics in the postbribery, post-9/11 era, particularly at consequences for host cities and so-called "Olympic education" for schoolchildren.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Scholar and activist Helen Jefferson Lenskyj continues her critique of the Olympic industry, looking specifically at developments in the post-9/11 and postbribery scandal era. Examining events and activism in host cities, as well as in several locations that bid unsuccessfully on the Olympics, Lenskyj shows how basic rights and freedoms, particularly of the press and of assembly, are compromised. Lenskyj investigates the pro-Olympic bias in media treatment of bids and preparations, the "fallen hero" phenomenon that includes doping and female athletes who pose nude in calendars, and takes issue with "Olympic education" curricular materials for schoolchildren. Also discussed are the problems of housing and homelessness created when the Olympics become a catalyst for urban redevelopment projects.

"What are the Olympics really about? How to get behind the noise from boosters and speculators that dominate the media? Easy. Read Helen Lenskyj." -- Andrew Jennings, author of FOUL! The Secret World of FIFA: Bribes, Vote Rigging, and Ticket Scandals

"Lenskyj presents an impassioned critique of the exploits and exploitations of successive Olympics, from rehousing scandals, to brainwashing of children into the secular theology of Olympism, to suppression of academic freedom, to the financial and decision-making culture of secrecy, to sellouts by women in sport of both feminist and nonfeminist persuasions. Very few escape her attention." -- Celia Brackenridge, Brunel University

About the Author

Helen Jefferson Lenskyj is Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto. She is the author of several books on the Olympic industry, including The Best Olympics Ever? Social Impacts of Sydney 2000 and Inside the Olympic Industry: Power, Politics, and Activism, both also published by SUNY Press.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 182 pages
• Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr (June 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0791474798
• ISBN-13: 978-0791474792
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,837,933 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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