Access The 1940 Tokyo Games: The Missing Olympics: Japan, The Asian Olympics And The Olympic Movement Prepared By Sandra Collins Accessible As Mobi

Sandra Collins argument in TheTokyo Games varies somewhat from chapter to chapter, her overarching theme is that Tokyos attempts to bid and prepare for theSummer Olympics were coopted rapidly by a Japanese federal government seeking to demonstrate its equality with the Western capitals that had hosted the tournament previously.
Despite playing on Coubertins idea of the universality of the Games, and the fact that they had never been held outside of Europe or the United States, Japan injected nationalism into every stage of planning once they had been selected as hosts.
When pragmatic concerns impeded their ability to hold a successful tournament, the connection that the Japanese had forged between the strength of their nation and hosting the Games led them to vacillate and delay cancellation until the last minute.


Although the Japanese government would become invested heavily in hosting the Games, the authors first postintroductory chapter chronicles the difficulties encountered by Mayor Nagata Hidejiro in convincing even local officials to support his campaign of bringing the Games to Tokyo.
Japans entanglements in Manchuria left it seeking creative ways to escape its international isolation, but many within Japan felt that Tokyo was incapable of hosting the Olympics.
It was only after further militarization and isolation that the Japanese Olympic Committee acquiesced to backing the bid as a means of sports diplomacy.
Support was also boosted by the Japanese delegation to theSummer Olympics, whose success not only raised the nations selfperception, but the level of international respect as well.
Collins second body chapter outlines both the way in which the reticence of the federal government to support the bid was overcome and the controversial methods used by Japan to win.
It is the latter concern that features more prominently in her narrative, with the central idea being that Japan focused on earning the support of diplomats and ambassadors rather than International Olympic Committee IOC members.
This strategy was novel and threatened to diminish the influence of the IOC, who inpostponed the vote on selecting a host city after political negotiations led to Rome cancelling its bid in support of Japan.
Thus the Japanese shifted their tactics and invited IOC President Henri de BailletLatour to tour Japan, which convinced him to support Japans bid on a personal level.
These tactics upset many European nations, including Great Britain, which launched a late surprise bid, but ultimately Japan won the Games.


Collins third chapter details the problems that arose early as the City of Tokyos visions for the Games clashed with those of the Japanese Olympic Committee.
Now fully invested in hosting, the Japanese government wanted to intertwine the fabric of the Games with Japanese nationalism, which led to the placement of a large number of government officials on the Olympic Organizing Committee.
The states objective was to champion nationalism, but avoid the style of theBerlin Games, whose excesses were designed to legitimize Hitlers regime.
The IOC was concerned that the Games were being used solely to promote nationalism and that little progress was being made on the logistical aspects, fears that were not assuaged by Japans poor progress report at theIOC session.
In her penultimate body chapter, the author uses the debate over the location of the main stadium as a way to highlight the logistical difficulties.
The federal government wanted to use the stadium at the Meiji Shrine as a symbol of Japans modernity and power, but opponents from Tokyo argued that this was impractical, as it was not large or modern enough and the gardens might be damaged, and that it was unnecessarily costly.
Ultimately the location was moved to one that could support the needs of the Games, but the delays shook the IOCs confidence in Japans ability to host.
Similar conflict arose over the torch relay when the IOC drew up an AthensJapan plan that was rejected in favor of a more nationalist crossJapan tour.


Collins final body chapter outlines the eventual cancellation of the Games, which stemmed from Japans dwindling resources following its invasion of China.
By, even though it was well aware that it would be unable to host properly, the nation refused to relinquish the Games at that years IOC session because hosting them was tied so strongly to nationalism.
When the end finally came, the IOC was relieved more than anything, since it had already been working on a backup plan with Helsinki, and thus it offered a generally positive response.
Her conclusion focuses on how Japansandbids painted the nation as a victim of circumstance that had been robbed of the opportunity to host due to World War II.
The acceptance of this narrative, which disregarded the nations internal problems in, demonstrated the successful renegotiation of Japans global position after the conflict.
The author sees, therefore, theSeoul andBeijing Games as better mirrors of the preparations for, as they were both run in a more authoritarian fashion as a way of demonstrating the nations power and modernity and dispelling regional stereotypes.


Collins narrative is comprehensive and detailed, doing an excellent job of elucidating its subject in an intelligible way.
It is, however, clearly put together from a series of different pieces each chapter remains referred to as an “article” or “contribution” in its introduction, which leads it to feel fragmented and unconnected to an overarching theme at times, even if the argument in each individual chapter is clear and wellsignposted.
Thus the work has an uneven feel over all, making it difficult to evaluate at as a whole some elements that are very welldone in certain chapters are lacking in others.
Furthermore, the introduction and

conclusion can be difficult to follow, as they attempt to compensate for the patchy nature of the text by packing a lot of information, argument, theory, and analysis into one place.
Overall, while TheTokyo Games can feel scattered and superficial in certain places, it is nonetheless an excellent source of information on a littledocumented subject and a worthwhile and accessible read for scholars and casual readers alike.
By representing their experience of modernity as different from the West in their respective Olympic Games, Asian nations reveal much about the ambitions and anxieties of being an Asian host in the continuing western Olympic hegemony.
This original work explores the encounter between 'the East and the West' by analyzing the deliberate selfpresentational cultural diplomacy historically required of Asian Olympic hosts.


Exploring the relationship between Modern Asia and the Olympic Games, it focuses on the forgotten history of theTokyo Olympics to reveal the complex and fascinating encounter between Japan and the world in thes.
The book is the first full account of this encounter and draws substantially on Japanese sources hitherto unknown in the Englishspeaking world.
It argues that this encounter sets the scene and the tone for later Asian involvement in the Olympic Movement.
It includes chapters on:

Imperial Commemoration and Diplomacy the Japanese Fascist Olympics the Event, Japanese Style the Spectre ofin Later Asian Olympics.
This work fills a gap in the literature, and provides an original addition to the history of Japanese culture, Asian cultures and the Olympic Movement.


This book is a special issue of The International Journal of the History of Sport.
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