The torch relay—that staple of Olympic pageantry—first opened the summer games in 1936 in Berlin. Proposed by the Nazi Propaganda Ministry, the relay was to carry the symbolism of a new Germany across its route through southeastern and central Europe.
The Fifth Edition retains these strengths while embracing recent developments and current research. The text covers a century of rapid and tumultuous change, from increased population and migration in the early 1900s through the ongoing unrest in the Balk