ABSTRACT
The establishment of the modern Olympic Games in 1896 involved a classic instance of the invention of tradition, in which elements of the ancient Greek Games, English public school education, nineteenth-century sport festivals, emerging cultures of physical education, and a contemporary French perspective were grafted together. This took place in the context of late nineteenth-century European politics, and particularly the attempts of France to cope with the humiliation of its defeat by German forces in 1870, the year before a united Germany became a nation-state.
