There is no bigger event in the world of sports than the quandrennial Summer Olympic Games. In recent years, the competition among cities to host the Games has been as vigorous as that among the athletes themselves. But why would a city wish to take on the financial burden and risk of hosting the Olympics? Holger Preuss takes the most comprehensive look to date at the economic, social, and political costs and benefits of hosting the Games in his book The Economics of Staging the Olympics: A Comparison of the Games 1972–2008.