Departments

;

Olympic Games

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    4/3/2023

    The Beneficiary of Hosting the Olympics is the Police State

    by Jules Boykoff

    The extreme circumstances surrounding the international spectacle of the games justifies "states of exception" that remain part of law enforcement practices after the games end, stifling civil liberties and democratic dissent. 

  • 2/13/2022

    A Tale of Two Olympics: Changed China in a Changed World

    by Joe Renouard

    Since the 2008 Beijing games, the People's Republic of China's vastly increased global economic power and the COVID pandemic have changed the core narrative around the current winter games. It remains to be seen whether the Olympics will signal a turn back to openness or the intransigence of a confident world power. 

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    2/4/2022

    Will the Diplomatic Boycott of the Olympics Have any Effect on China?

    by Meghan Herwig

    After Tiananmen Square, it became clear that American foreign policy was limited by other Asian nation's growing dependence on China. Today, as regional relations shift, will a more effective human rights advocacy be possible? 

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    1/19/2022

    The Existential Crisis of the Winter Games is a Long Time Coming

    by Bruce Berglund

    Avery Brundage of the International Olympic Committee had many faults, but he understood that the Winter Olympics were increasingly out of step with a sporting world less focused on Europe and North America and less tolerant of the massive expenditure needed to host the games.

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    7/28/2021

    It's Impossible to Separate Politics and the Olympics

    by Michelle Sikes

    The Supreme Council for Sport in Africa was a collaboration of 32 nations to pressure international sporting authorities to seek to bar the white supremacist regimes of South Africa and Rhodesia from major competition, most notably through a boycott of the 1976 Montreal games. 

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    7/23/2021

    The IOC May Not Like it, but the Games have Always Been a Forum for Protest

    by Harry Blutstein

    "Baron Pierre de Coubertin, believed that Olympiads were a way to communicate “love for concord and a respect for life.” So it was not surprising that activist athletes saw the Olympics as a legitimate forum to promote those values whenever they saw them violated."

  • SOURCE: Perspectives on History
    7/21/2021

    Why Japan Forfeited Hosting the 1940 Games

    by Paul Droubie

    Japan's forfeiture of the games amid rising international and internal tensions shows that the Olympics have always been a vehicle for the promotion of national elites' agendas, often at the expense of popular domestic concerns. 

  • SOURCE: The New Republic
    7/12/2021

    Abolish the Olympics

    Natalie Shure argues that the Games impose too many costs on their host cities to justify a short-lived athletic spectacle.