Helen Jefferson Lenskyj, 2000, State University of New York Press, ISBN pbk 0 7914 4756 1.

Very informative over a wide range of issues contained in its title. Difficult to read though.

It is like walking straight into a long running family fight. Full of a vast range of characters and passing references to many previous spats. Best taken in by reading the mercifully supplied conclusions at the end of each chapter first then choosing where you want to pitch into it for the detail of that part of the drama.

Amazon were flogging it off cheap.

See also: Publishers

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Read Online at: Inside the Olympic Industry

Maurice Roche, 2000, Routledge, ISBN pbk 0 415 15711 0.

Excellent, well written historical account from their 19th century beginnings to recent. More political economy than economics.

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Read Online at: Mega-Events and Modernity

Helen Jefferson Lenskyj, 2002, SUNY, ISBN pbk 0 7914 5473 8.

Same readability problems as her earlier book but very informative nonetheless. She is Australian.

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Holger Preuss (Professor of Sport Economics and Sportmanagement, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Germany and member of Research Team Olympia), Edward Elgar, 2004, ISBN pbk 1 8 4376 893 3.

Anal economic minutiae of the title subjects ( I have given his proper title as it appears in his book because it tells a story about his self-importance). Very much in the pocket of the IOC view.

Sadly boosted now by Prof Gavin Poynter of UEL, recent recruits to the Olympic consultancy industry. Contains masses of comparative 'economic' analysis though.

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See More at: The Economics of Staging the Olympics

Matthew J. Burbank, Gregory Andranovich, Charles H. Heying,
Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001, ISBN: 978-1-55587-991-4, pb

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Investigating local politics in three U.S. cities - Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Salt Lake City - as they vied for the role of Olympic host, this book provides a narrative of the evolving political economy of modern mega-events.

..our concern is with the impact that mega-events have on the politics of American cities. We address the broad issue of how these events affect the governance of host cities by focussing on four questions:

1. How and why do cities seek to host mega-events ?
2. How are policy decisions concerning mega-events made ?
3. What are the outcomes of hosting a mega-event ?
4. What can the conduct of mega-events tell us about urban politics generally ?

View online at: Olympic Dreams

The Beijing Olympiad: The Political Economy of a Sporting Mega-Event, Paul Close, David Askew, Xu Xin.
Routledge, 2006, ISBN-13: 978-0415357012

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There are grounds for assuming that the Beijing Olympiad may act as a catalyst in the re-alignment process within the Global Political Economy and, not unconnectedly, will provide a spur to important changes inside Chinese society itself, not least in the area of human rights.

After all, the Olympiad will be a convergence point, or focal event, for a cluster of major developments at and between the local, regional and global levels of social life.

The developments involved include the deepening institutionalization of Olympism at the global level; the global spread of the Western cultural account around the doctrine of individualism; the advance of market capitalism and liberal democracy on the global plane; the progress of globalization in conjunction with the consolidation of global society; and the rise of China as a regional and global political economy player and superpower.

It is because of the way in which the Beijing Olympiad will draw together in a highly concentrated, dense and intense fashion these developments that the 2008 Games are likely to be not merely another sporting mega-event, but moreover the greatest ever mega-event, at least for the time being, with unprecedented internal and external social, economic, political and cultural consequences.

From an Introduction by Paul Close.

See More at: Play the Game