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Soviet attempts to democratize the Olympics, is also discussed in chapter two, where Parks shows how Soviet sports leaders took the IOC to task for its “discriminatory attitude” (51) against women. The importance of winning the Olympic Games for Moscow was high on the agenda at an early stage, and actively pursued for the 1976 Games. The bureaucratic wrangling behind this first failed bid is covered well in Chapter 3, as is the successful 1980 bid. Of particular interest is the monumental effort invested in securing the 1980 Games, which included expected assurances of the necessary infrastructure but also a lot of behindthe-scenes diplomatic efforts between the Soviet Sports Committee, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and the international federation representatives. This sets the scene for two engaging chapters that deal with the Moscow Olympiad. The Moscow Olympic Organizing Committee (Orgcom) was concerned with the huge challenges ahead of it, and as Parks lists these, its concern seemed more than justified. Yet, as this chapter convincingly shows, hosting the Games also represented a huge opportunity, and this was not just related to international status or prestige. The immense organizational effort necessitated a new approach that dispensed with much of the bureaucracy that could slow down decision-making within the Soviet system. Parks ably analyzes how the Orgcom tackled the myriad problems that confronted it. She acknowledges, however, that the hallmarks of the Brezhnev period, including increased spending on the military, drew funding away from sports and other sectors. This undermined the Soviet commitment to peace, which was dealt a severe blow after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a move that showed how much had changed in international relations since the Soviet Union initially won the Moscow Olympic bid. As Parks argues, cultural diplomacy could only go so far, and the effort to stage the Moscow Olympics illustrated the best and worst of late socialism. Archival research in Moscow, the United States, and Switzerland underpins this rich assessment of Soviet Olympic history. While neither the athletes nor the public reception of the Olympic Games are widely analyzed, this focused study of the middle layer of the Soviet system will find keen readers amongst those interested in Olympic history, international relations, and the late socialist period.