Promotional Information

This book is scholarly, unique, revelatory. And it will be controversial, especially among serious Olympic fans and scholars. -- John A. Lucas, Pennsylvania State University

About the Author

David C. Young is a professor of classics at the University of Florida.

Reviews

For more than 100 years, Baron Pierre de Coubertin of France has been glorified as the man who 'invented' the modern Olympic Games. It's not true, says a University of Florida professor. An English physician and a gaggle of 19th century Greeks did more to revive the Games, among them an eccentric philanthropist whose body was buried-per his instructions-in Romania, Albania and Athens, according to David C. Young, a classics professor with a long-standing interest in the Olympics. -- Alan Abrahamson Los Angeles Times David C. Young is a classicist who brings to this already investigated topic a doggedness and enthusiasm that go beyond anything done before. For the community of critical sports historians, this book is a major event. -- Richard D. Mandell American Historical Review Indispensable to all Olympic historians... Young is an enthralling writer... exhaustive research. Journal of Olympic History Young's research is impeccable. Journal of Sport History Young has provided us with a carefully researched examination of two important and much misunderstood episodes in Modern Olympic history, the genesis of the most vigorous and successful early attempts to organize Olympic Games in modern context... Far and away themost authoritative and comprehensive portrayal of the subject yet produced... The corpus of research data produced by Young in this study is far beyond admiration, it is altogether staggering. -- Robert K. Barney Olympika: International Journal of Olympic Studies