ABSTRACT
This book has presented a connected series of wide-ranging socio-historical explorations and accounts of the mega-event phenomenon in modernity. Based on these accounts, in this concluding chapter I now aim to focus some the general themes of my discussion by reflecting on some key questions. The aim in addressing large questions at this stage is not to provide definitive and exhaustive answers. Rather-in the spirit of my discussion as a whole, and revisiting some of the general themes and issues outlined in Chapter 1 en route-my aim is to illuminate the terrain of the political sociology and social theory of mega-events which this book has attempted to open up in its historical, descriptive and analytical accounts. Given that these accounts represent what is in effect a preliminary survey of the mega-event field, my aim is to suggest and illustrate some lines along which key questions might be explored further, beyond the reach of this particular study, in more extensive, intensive and systematic descriptive and theoretical research into mega-events. Also, given that these accounts have tended to give priority to the dramatological, political and economic dimensions of megaevents, my aim in this chapter is to attempt dig a bit deeper into the social theory of the sociological conditions and processes in modernity underlying and pervading these dimensions.
