Reflections on Mexico '68

Presenting a multi-disciplinary approach to Mexico City’s staging of the Olympic Games in 1968, this book combines analyses of literary works and protest music with comparative history to offer a fresh appreciation of the significance of the event.

• Explores the first Olympic Games to be hosted by a Spanish-speaking, Latin American country
• Includes new and pioneering research data on the Mexico Games
• An innovative approach from scholars from a variety of disciplines
• Re-appraisal of momentous events from an unusually wide diversity of geographical and thematic perspectives
• Applies historical analysis to inform future events

Preface.

Contributor Biographies.

Introduction (Keith Brewster, Newcastle University, UK).

1 ‘Prensa, Prensa’: A Journalist’s Reflections on Mexico ’68 (John Rodda).

2 Changing Impressions of Mexico for the 1968 Games (Claire Brewster, Newcastle University, UK).

3 Teaching Mexicans How to Behave: Public Education on the Eve of the Olympics (Keith Brewster, Newcastle University, UK).

4 Lyon ’68: The Games that Weren’t, or the Intermediate Event-zone of a Non-Olympics (Hugh Dauncey, Newcastle University, UK).

5 ‘Nasty Demonstrations by Negroes’: The Place of the Smith–Carlos Podium Salute in the Civil Rights Movement (Simon Henderson, Newcastle University, UK).

6 Mexico 1968 and South Africa 2010: Sombreros and Vuvuzelas and the Legitimisation of Global Sporting Events (Chris Bolsmann, Aston University, UK).

7 LuisGonz´alez de Alba’s Los d´ias y los a˜nos (1971) and Elena Poniatowska’s La noche de Tlatelolco (1971): Foundational Representations of Mexico ’68 (Chris Harris, University of Liverpool, UK).

8 Traumatic Time in Roberto Bola ˜no’s Amuleto and the Archive of 1968 (Ryan Long, University of Oklahoma, USA).

9 ‘Writing Our History in Songs’: Judith Reyes, Popular Music and the Student Movement of 1968 (Hazel Marsh, University of East Anglia, UK).

References.

Index.

In light of the recent 40th anniversary, this book brings together scholars from a variety of disciplines to explore Mexico City’s staging of the Olympic Games in 1968. The Games were the first to be hosted by a developing, Spanish-speaking Latin American country, and the chapters investigate the motives behind the IOC’s decision in choosing Mexico as the host, and the international concerns and conclusions regarding its staging of the event. It then moves on to address the issues of developing world identities, the Black American protest, and the Mexican Student Movement as well as examine themes of memory and commemoration, and exploring the ways in which the genres of literature and protest music can enrich our appreciation of this historical event.

Offering an innovative and multi-disciplinary approach to this historically significant event, this book will be of real significance to students and scholars in the field.

Keith Brewster joined the School of Historical Studies at Newcastle University in 2003, having spent five years as a Research Officer at the Centre of Latin American Studies, University of Cambridge. His PhD, which he completed at Warwick University, centred on the militarism and politics in post-revolutionary rural Mexico. His main area of research interest and expertise is twentieth century Mexican history and culture.