Berör öppningsceremonier i Olympiska spelen från 1980 i Moskva fram till 2020 i London.

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.