Politics and the Rome Olympics

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer looks at the politics surrounding the 1960 Rome Olympics and examines how these externalities shaped the way in which history will remember the Games. The paper also looks at why the Games were so vitally important to Italy at the time - and why the Games, perhaps in a fashion unknown at the time, contributed to the burgeoning feminist movement. Finally, and most importantly, the paper looks at the role the Cold War played in making the 1960 Rome Games substantially different from any Olympic Games that had come before it. In particular, time is devoted to looking at how the Olympic Games of 1960 signaled to a mass American audience that the notion of automatic American superiority was no more; the medal haul of the Soviet Union that year was compelling proof of such. Ultimately, the 1960 Rome Olympics saw broader developments in the wider world reflected in significant changes on the medal podium.

From the Paper:

"The 1960 Rome Olympics was significant, in part, because it underscored the position of Italy at the dawn of the 1960s. To wit, the country was awarded the 1960 Rome Olympics chiefly because of its economic progress since 1945 and because of its legitimate place as a member of the "Capitalist West;" there is also the general sense that the country was given the bauble of the Games because of its political progress since the end of the Second World War; as an addendum, it should be noted that the Games were very important to Italians, or at least to their leaders, inasmuch as the country struggled after the close of the Second World War with a reputation for being politically unstable and even "anarchic". From a purely economic stand-point, the 1960 Rome Olympics were important to Italy because the country, whatever economic gains it had made in the previous 15 years, was still woefully dependent upon tourism."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Bosworth, R.J.B. Italy and the Wider World: 1860-1960. New York: Routledge, 1996. Questia.com. 26 May 2007 <http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=103086980#>
• Breckinridge, Scott D. The CIA and the Cold War: A Memoir. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1993.
• Brogi, Alessandro, Erik Goldstein, William R. Keylor, and Cathal J. Nolan. A Question of Self-Esteem: The United States and the Cold War Choices in France and Italy, 1944-1958. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2002.
• Fleming, D.F. The Cold War and Its Origins: 1917-1960. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1961.
• Guttman, Allen. Women's Sports: A History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.

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