Otto J.

Schantz

Pierre de Coubertin’s “Civilizing Mission”

Otto J. Schantz
Germany

The purpose of this paper is to analyze Coubertin’s concepts of “civilization” and “race,” in order bet-
ter to understand the anthropological foundations of his Olympism in general and to show that this
Olympism has been a part of his “civilizing mission.” His efforts for educational reform in France, his
fervent philhellenism, his enthusiasm for the colonial endeavor, his engagements for popular education
were all part of his “great work” of keeping social and international peace and of “uplifting mankind.”
He considered the “civilized part” of mankind threatened by moral and physical degeneration, while
he saw the rest still in a state of “primitive” and inferior civilization. In his publications, we can reveal
an ambiguous, racist period from 1900 to the end of the First World War, with many racist statements
claiming the innate inferiority of non-whites on the one hand and on the other hand statements consid-
ering the educability of “races” other than the white race. The Olympic Games, which brought
together the finest youth of the whole world every four years, symbolized for Coubertin an eternal
spring of humankind, the eternal striving to better humanity. In Coubertin’s mind, peoples at the stage
of “half-savages” were not ready yet for this noble and elitist meeting. Also their games were not seri-
ous enough to be included in the Olympic Games that were to accomplish the athletic part of the civ-
ilizing mission. Today, the Olympic Games, as a legacy of the civilization mission, still promote
Western or westernized sports exclusively, even though they claim to be a universal movement.

T
he purpose of my paper is to analyze Pierre de Coubertin’s concepts of “civilization”
and “race,” in order better to understand the anthropological foundations of his Olymp-
ism in general and to show that this Olympism has been a part of his “civilizing mis-
sion.” A case in point is the following statement de Coubertin made in 1908 on the 1904
Games in Saint Louis:
The St. Louis Games did feature some original approaches. The “star attraction,” so to
speak, was incontestably what the Americans called, in their picturesque language, the
“anthropological day,” a day that lasted forty-eight hours, in fact. In the course of these
singular athletic meets, competitions were held in the Stadium pitting the Sioux against
Patagonians, the Cocopas of Mexico and the Moro of the Philippines, the Ainu of Japan,
the Pygmies of Africa, the Syrians, and the Turks—the latter [not]1 flattered, no doubt, at
being included in such company. All these men competed in the usual civilized contests,
foot races, rope climbing, shot put and javelin throwing, jumping, and archery. Nowhere
else but in America would anyone have dared to put such a thing in the program of an
Olympiad. But for the Americans, all is permitted. Their youthful enthusiasm certainly
enjoyed the indulgence of the shades of the great Greek ancestors, if, by chance, they
happened to be wandering by at that moment among the amused throng.2
54 Otto J. Schantz

Five years later, in another article entitled “An Olympiad in the Far East,” Coubertin gave a somewhat
different perception of these Anthropological Days. As this article was concerned with Asia, he
focused on the Asian participants of these Days and instead of the Turks and the Syrians he considered
the Asians not to be flattered by the presence of the other “barbarian” participants:
During the competitions of the Third Olympiad, held in St. Louis in 1904, one or more
days were reserved for performances by Asians. The Americans clearly see themselves
as athletic preceptors in the Far East. The day-long festivities in St. Louis were hardly
flattering for the people in that part of the world. These descendants of such ancient
and refined civilizations were called on to compare with representatives of peoples
scarcely refined out of their original barbarianism. This was a mistake.3
Coubertin’s commentaries can be interpreted and have been interpreted in different ways.4 At a first
glance, one could argue that Coubertin was offended by the fact that separate competitions were orga-
nized for “exotic people” during a festival which claimed to bring together athletes from all over the
world. But if we take a closer look we see that he established a ranking of the different ethnical groups,
and expressed his disapproval of the fact that people from “refined civilizations” were obliged to com-
pete with people from almost barbarian origins, with the latter including Native Americans and pygmies
from Africa. Coubertin clearly associates cultural difference with inferiority. Are these statements about
the “Anthropological Days” not an expression of Coubertin’s racist attitude? Does he not practise a “cul-
ture-coded form” of racism when ranking people according to their different cultural origins?5
In the following section, I will analyze Coubertin’s concept of “race,” in order to better understand
the anthropological foundations of his Olympism. Coubertin considered himself a “rallié,” somebody
who joined the Republicans after having been a Monarchist. But, even within the Republicans, “racial
thought” was common at the end of the 19th century in France. A “racial paradigm” construed by sci-
entists, which was largely vulgarized in popular literature and accepted by a great majority of the soci-
ety, characterized the French Republic from 1860 to 1930.6 There were exceptions to the republican
principle of equality: There were “brothers and subjects” who were equal but not exactly equal.7
Some republicans like Alexis de Tocqueville or Jules Ferry tried to argue that human rights should not
be applied systematically to all races, and that such an application should depend on the circum-
stances.8 It is very unlikely that this racial paradigm of the Third French Republic was without influ-
ence on Coubertin.

Coubertin and the Race Issue in the United States

The first time Coubertin raised the racial issue was in his early writings when he described his travel
experiences in North America. During his comparative educational studies in the USA he witnessed
the racial segregation in the South and called it “shameful distinctions .”9 Traveling on the train, during
his visit to Florida, he was shocked by the humiliating treatment of a clean and well-dressed African-
American lady who was asked by the conductor to leave the seats reserved for white people. He
explained the condition of the African-Americans as a result of slavery which “causes them to still be
submissive to their former masters” and considered that “it would take time to bring back the sense of
equality to the former and the latter.”10
Hopefully the new generation would change this situation. He was astonished at the potential of
the African-American students who in school “learn marvelously and show that they are talented.”11
He was sure that they would soon catch up with their white comrades.
In these early writings, Coubertin showed empathy and sympathy for the African Americans. The
distinctions he made were based on social class and not on “race.” He preferred well-educated mid-
Pierre de Coubertin’s “Civilizing Mission” 55

dle class African-Americans to some white, lower-class people. He found that these students were
“sympathetic, more sympathetic than these dirty and drunken beings who [were] sitting sometimes
next to [him] in the American trains.”12
In 1903, his attitudes toward African-Americans had undergone a radical change. “Despite the
progress made by the less advanced of the two races,” he considered that the differences between
white and black were still “shocking.” 13 In his opinion, neither the expatriation of the African-Ameri-
can to Liberia, as some suggested, nor the “absorption” by mixing both groups were viable answers to
resolve the racial problems in the USA. The first solution would not be realistic, he argues, as these
people were born in the USA and would come back further or later anyway. The second solution is
from his point of view too risky. Who could guarantee that “the qualities of the superior race would
overcome the faults of the inferior race”14 He thinks “…as you neither can get rid of the negroes nor
absorb them, there is no other solution than to tolerate them.”15 In his fear of mixing “inferior” and
“superior” races, Coubertin joins the ideology of Gobineau, a French novelist who published with his
“Essai sur l’inégalité des races humaines” (“An Essay on the Inequality of Human Races”) one of the
most influential racialist theory in the 19th century. In a more literary than scientific way, Gobineau
tried to explain the “degeneration” of empires as a result of interbreeding of distinct races.16

Coubertin’s Colonial and Racial Attitude

We can find probably the most evidence and the most seminal texts concerning Coubertin’s attitude
towards the racial issue in his writings on colonialism. He was a fervent advocate of the colonial
enterprise. In one of his unpublished memoirs, he wrote: “From the first day on I was a fanatic colo-
nialist, a fact which provoked the indignation of my friends from the monarchist party.”17 Coubertin
regarded loyal and legitimate international competition, the “healthy international emulation” in
sports, industry, science and culture—and if necessary in war—as a playing or battle field for nations
to strengthen their national body, their race.18
Colonialism was for him part of this universal competition between the great civilized nations, and
Coubertin was eager to see France take part in this competition and keep pace with the great leading
nations.19 He celebrated French colonialism and the French Republic which was able “to write in 40
years the most admirable story of colonialism.”20 He was a close friend of the famous Maréchal Louis
Hubert Lyautey, a convinced royalist and pious catholic with progressive social ideas,21 who in
Morocco tried to realize a French protectorate with “a human face.”22 Influenced by his professor Paul
Leroy-Beaulieu and the colonial ideas of Jules Ferry, Coubertin believed that colonial activities reflected
the grandeur and the power of a nation. He was an ardent defender of French colonialism, which to
him was part of the efforts to rebuild a strong and splendid France after the disaster of 1870/71, accord-
ing to his motto “rebronzer la France.”
There are many factors which could explain colonialism and many theories have been developed
to do so, but we will limit our focus to Coubertin’s perspective.23 One function of imperialism was,
according to Hannah Arendt, that of healing the inner wounds of a nation, which was after 1870 cer-
tainly an important reason for the great French colonial adventure abroad.24 It contributed to building
up the self-esteem of the French nation; it was a therapy for the French, especially for the French bour-
geoisie, who were traumatized by the loss of Alsace and Lorraine. But at the same time colonialism
was a great enterprise of civilization: colonialism as mission of civilization (mission civilicatrice).
John L. O’Sullivan’s conception of “Manifest Destiny” in the United States of America, Rudyard
Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden” in the United Kingdom, and in France the “Mission Civilisatrice”
served as a leitmotif and god-given or natural vocation to imperialism. The French mission of civiliza-
56 Otto J. Schantz

tion was a mixture of Christian missionary vocation and the legacy of the Great French Revolution,
which aimed to bring enlightenment and well-being to the whole world.25 On the background of this
lofty ideal, the brutal and inhuman colonial reality became compatible with the republican principles
of equality, liberty, and fraternity.26 Thanks to the French maternal assistance and caring, and if neces-
sary severity, the inferior colonial subject should, as final objective, become part of the enlightened
humanity and attain the status of a French citoyen. This is the humanitarian justification of French
colonialism, but in reality the Republic generated a double and ambiguous discourse. The metropoli-
tan policy claiming and trying to realize the Republican ideals was quite different from the colonial
policy, which was characterized by domination of the indigenous subjects, by consolidation of differ-
ences, and by racial hierarchies.
During the second half of the 19th century a strong colonial culture emerged in France. Media, lit-
erature, and expositions constructed the right to colonize.27 In Europe as in the USA, the display of
“savages,” which later became “indigenous” as part of the colonial empire, served to legitimize the
civilizing mission by showing who was civilized and who had to be civilized.28
During the 1900 Universal Exhibition, which hosted the second Olympic Games, the place
assigned to colonies was more important than ever. The organizers’ objective was to persuade specta-
tors of the necessity and the usefulness of colonial activities by a “politics of exhibiting.”29 The colo-
nial section was a huge propaganda show, justifying and documenting the civilizing mission. While
displayed objects and documents highlighted the benefits of colonial activities, indigenous art work,
regarded as hideous, fortified the sentiment of superiority of the civilizers.30
From the point of view of the Olympic movement, the 1900 Olympic Games were a “mediocre
affaire.”31 Coubertin, who wanted to organize in 1900 splendid Games in the cultural capital of the
world, his home town Paris, was disappointed by the way these Games were ultimately diluted in the
Exhibition. Coubertin imagined that in Paris: “the crowds would have the competitions and the festivities
of the Exhibition, while we [the IOC] would organize Games for the elite—the elite among athletes, who
would be few in number but composed of the greatest champions of the world; the elite among specta-
tors, men and women in society, diplomats, professors, generals, and members of the Institute.”32
Neither in Paris nor in St. Louis would Coubertin’s wishes come true. The Paris as well as most of
the St. Louis competitions lacked high standards. In addition, the participation of “uncivilized” tribes,
which were not even at the level of sporting apprenticeship, in the St. Louis Games , must have been a
great affront to Coubertin’s elitist and selective conception of the Games.
At the end of the nineteenth century, two different discourses can be distinguished within the
French Republicans. There were those who believed in the equality of human races, and considered
indigenous people to be “educable” and able to reach—in the long term—the same level of the civili-
zation as the French citoyens.
But in accordance with the growing racist discourse of contemporary science many Republicans—
like Jules Ferry—were convinced that racial differences were unchangeable. In their opinion other
“races” could “be ameliorated” by long term education, but would never reach the level of their
French “model.”33
Until the First World War, Coubertin’s position varied between both republican attitudes. In his
travel notes on his experiences in the USA, he expresses his belief in the potential of Black Americans
to catch up with White Americans. In various reviews after 1900, he published pro-colonialist argu-
ments which are clearly racist as he draws attention to the innate and definitive inferiority of some
races, while at the same time he published declarations which considered racial differences and hier-
archies to be ephemeral.
Pierre de Coubertin’s “Civilizing Mission” 57

One of his harshest racist statements can be found in the Chronique de France, published in
1902, where he refers to the results of the 1900 Congress of Sociology of Colonialism. He states that
this congress had definitely eradicated “the theories about the equality of races and of absolute
progress, which had been disseminated by the Revolution and which have been guilty of so many
errors and faults.”34
In the same year he published another racist statement which regarded a group of African people
as innate and definitely inferior. While describing the natives of South-Africa he argues that “these
blacks are mediocre workers.”35 According to Coubertin, there is no hope for great change as “you can
ameliorate them as you can improve the soil, but only in a restricted proportion; you will reduce the
idleness of the former and the infertility of the latter, but you will never make them disappear.”36
Whereas in other publications he seems to believe in the educability and potential of indigenous peo-
ples to attain European cultural standards, here he clearly points out the definitive racial gap. At the
same time he reproduces here the common colonial discourse which identified certain racially con-
structed categories of people as natural working class with more or less efficient productivity.37
One year before, in a 1901 issue of American Monthly Review of Reviews, he obviously estab-
lishes a hierarchy between the colonizing and the colonized races, but he considers that education
could raise the latter to the standards of the former: “Another theory, that of equal rights for all human
races, leads to a policy contrary to any colonial progress. Without including in even the most lenient
form of serfdom, not to speak of slavery, the superior race is justified in refusing to extend several priv-
ileges of civilized life to the lower one. A fair treatment, justice to all, and special protection to the
natives against the possible cruelties and encroachments of their rulers are enough, in many cases. Of
course, it the duty of the latter to try and raise the lower race to their own standard; but such an edu-
cational work is very slow, and to hasten it is simply to injure it and, at the same time, to hinder colo-
nization and weary those who are busy at it.”38
One year later, inspired by a piece of theatre of François de Curel, and drawing on the conclusions
of the Congress of Colonial Sociology, he argues in favor of a progressive Europeanization of the
“retarded peoples” in the colonies: “The great lesson from the experience and the conclusions of the
last Congress of Colonial Sociology, organized at the occasion of the Universal Exposition, shows that
we have to leave to the retarded peoples as much as possible of what they have acquired, and to bring
to them only what seems to be really necessary for their progressive Europeanization.”39
Those who “consider that this Europeanization is illegitimate, that their religions are equal to ours,
that they are different but not inferior” lack realism and just preach “lovely sophisms.”40 But this Euro-
peanization will be a long process as “heredity cannot be replaced; it can be lost or it can be slowly
acquired. You can try to educate the barbarian, instruct him intensely, remove him, take him out of
the country, he cannot become similar to you; huge gaps will separate him from you…”41 Coubertin
believed that it had been proven scientifically that Europeanization is possible, but only at long term.
This knowledge, he claims, has the advantage that it “will largely enlighten the effort of colonization
without discouraging it.”42
He had a paternalistic attitude towards the colonies: “The colonies are like children: it is rela-
tively easy to make them, but it is difficult to provide them with a good education.”43 This position
of Coubertin concurred with “[…] the ‘civilizing mission’ of imperial ideology, which encouraged
colonial powers to take up with the ‘white man’s burden’ and raise up the condition of the infe-
rior races who were idealized as child-like and malleable.”44 Further evidence of Coubertin’s
paternalistic attitude towards colonized peoples is his denomination of the Asian Games as a
“kindergarten of Olympism.”45
58 Otto J. Schantz

The Role of Sports in the Civilizing Mission

For Coubertin educational reform in France was a necessary pillar for a successful colonialism.46 In the
new educational system, adapted to the demands of the imperial 20th century, sports had an impor-
tant role to play to prepare the colonizers for the strenuous efforts abroad.47 It was “an eminent factor
of the colonial enterprise at such a point that colonizing without sporting preparation constitutes a
dangerous imprudence.”48
After the First World War, physical activities were no more just an auxiliary instrument for mili-
tary, hygienic or social purposes, but became an integral part of French colonial politics.49 Sports were
an efficient instrument to prepare the colonizers for their mission; at the same time, sport was part of
the superior civilization and as such it should be transmitted to the natives. Coubertin was convinced
that the popular games and physical activities of the natives would never be “anything more than
amusements, recreation.”50 In his opinion, only modern Western sports were civilized activities: “If
one wishes to extend to natives in colonized countries what we will boldly call the benefits of ‘athletic
civilization,’ they must be made to enter into the broad athletic system with codified regulations and
comparative results, which is the necessary basis of that civilization.”51
It is understandable that Coubertin was embarrassed by the St. Louis Anthropological Days and
their “savage games” of the indigenous who were not ready to participate in such a prestigious event.
He regarded the Olympic Games as the flagship of his “athletic civilization mission.” The legacy of
this mission is still manifest in our times: despite what Coubertin considered to be “the fundamental
rule of the modern Olympiads which fits into two words: all games, all nations,”52 the program of the
Games remains dominated by Western sports.
In the colonies Coubertin believed sports to be “a vigorous instrument of the disciplining” of the
indigenous people to be colonized.53 Sport should help to keep social peace in the colonies, because
“sport not only strengthens but also calms.”54 Commercial exchange between the Western World and
the colonies but also the civilizing mission would have been troubled without social peace among the
natives and the colonizers. The colonies became an experimental field for social engineering in the
home country, where Coubertin tried to use sport as an instrument to foster mutual understanding
between different social strata.55

Coubertin’s Racial Attitude after the First World War

In the first decade of the 20th century, Coubertin’s position toward the racial question was rather
ambiguous, but started changing even before the First World War.
In an article of the Olympic Revue from 1912, entitled “Eugenics,” Coubertin criticized vehe-
mently “the belief in the natural sovereignty of a specific race, designated to dominate all the oth-
ers.”56 He treats the defenders of this theory, like Lapouge, as “demi-savants” (half-scientific) and
regards their ideas as “âneries” (nonsense).57
After the First World War, his attitudes towards colonized people became more compassionate
and humane. Writing about the African Games in his Olympic Memoirs he argues against the old
“colonial spirit” and pleads for the emancipation of indigenous people.58
There may be different reasons for Coubertin’s ambiguous attitudes before the First World War.
One explanation could be that he took a more cautious position in the Olympic Review, which was
addressed to a worldwide public, while he could express his harsh racial position when writing for
reviews like the Revue de Pays de Caux, the Revue pour les Français or the Revue des Deux Mondes
as the readership of these publications was in general in favor of ruthless colonial politics.
Pierre de Coubertin’s “Civilizing Mission” 59

The heroic and selfless devotion of the African soldiers serving in the French Army during the
Great War contributed to a somewhat less racist attitude towards the natives in the French colonies.
An example of the respect towards these soldiers was the attitude of General Lyautey, Coubertin’s
close friend and one of the great figures of French colonial activities, who demanded that all kinds of
racist exhibitions should be forbidden during the 1931 Colonial Exhibition in Paris.59
In his writings after the First World War, Coubertin has a monogenetic perception of humanity
even though he thinks that there is no historical evidence to back up this theory. In the preface of his
Universal History, he presents different ways to classify human beings according to skin color, lan-
guage or cranial measurement, and he demonstrates that, depending on the methods, the resulting
race categories are different.60 Regarding the question of equality of the different races, he states that
arguments favoring the superiority of the “white group representatives” are not corroborated. Like
Montesquieu he thinks that the influence of the milieu, the context, is clearly proven and for him the
“climate has been the real stonemason of the races, it gave them their physiognomy and their distinc-
tive traits.”61

Conclusion
After careful analysis, we can distinguish three different time phases in Pierre de Coubertin’s concep-
tion of race:
A period of empathy, where class differences are perceived to be more troubling than racial differ-
ences. During this time Coubertin believed in the existence of different races with different cultural
levels due to the environmental conditions, but able to improve and to catch up with the dominant
once; see comments on African-Americans.
An ambiguous racist period from 1900 to the end of the First World War, with many racist state-
ments claiming the innate inferiority of non-whites on the one hand and on the other hand statements
considering the educability of “races” other than the white race. The change in Coubertin’s attitude
toward non-white people is probably influenced by the International Congress of Colonial Sociology
(Congrès International de Sociologie Coloniale”) held during the 1900 Paris Universal Exhibition. This
congress can be considered as a turning point. It favored segregation politics, arguing that there are
fundamental and definitive differences between the races.
A change back to an assimilation theory after the World War I, in quest of social and international
peace, according to his Olympic and educational ideas. A changing focus from national education
and improvement of the French “race” to improvement of humankind.
Coubertin’s c omments on the Anthropological Days, which I quoted at the beginning, were writ-
ten in a phase of his life when in his writings he showed ambiguous, but often clearly racist, attitudes
toward non-white people. At the time he was probably influenced by the widely promulgated “scien-
tific” racial paradigm of the Third French Republic.
But instead of judging Coubertin solely on this period of life, we should take into consideration his
whole work and the evolution of his thoughts and ideas. From 1900 on, Coubertin’s writings had
shifted from the class-as-race discourse to an emphasis of co-operation between classes and education
of lower classes. This shift was parallel to a general evolution in Europe after 1900, where “the effi-
cient working together of all for the greater cohesion and strength of the nation locked in struggle with
other states.”62 After the trauma of the Great War and the shock of the Russian October Revolution, he
changed profoundly, and focused his efforts on popular education.63 He probably realized that neither
social peace nor international peace would be possible while major groups of people are dominated
by others and deprived of education.
60 Otto J. Schantz

Coubertin’s work was characterized by the will to improve humankind. First, at a national level,
he focused on the moral, intellectual, and physical education of the French aristocratic and bourgeois
society, then he expanded this uplifting mission to the whole of mankind. His efforts for educational
reform in France, his fervent philhellenism, his enthusiasm for the colonial endeavor, his engagements
for popular education were all part of his “great work” of keeping social and international peace and
of “uplifting mankind.”64 He considered the “civilized part” of mankind threatened by moral and phys-
ical degeneration, while he saw the rest still in a state of “primitive” and inferior civilization. The
Olympic Games, which brought together the finest youth of the whole world every four years, were a
symbol of an eternal spring of humankind, a symbol of the eternal striving to better humanity. In Cou-
bertin’s mind, peoples at the stage of “half-savages” were not ready yet for this noble and elitist meet-
ing. Also their games were not serious enough to be included in the Olympic Games that were to
accomplish the athletic part of the civilizing mission. Today, the Olympic Games, as a legacy of the
civilization mission, still promote Western or westernized sports exclusively, even though they claim
to be a universal movement.

Endnotes

1 There is a translation error in the English version of, “Pierre de Coubertin, Olympism: Selected Writings:” the original
states that the Turks were not flattered. Cf. Pierre de Coubertin, Une Campagne de vingt-et-un ans (1987-1908) (Paris.
Librairie de l’éducation physique, 1909), 161.
2 Pierre de Coubertin, Olympism: Selected Writings, ed. Norbert Müller (Lausanne: International Olympic Committee,
2000), 402-403. This statement was first published in 1908; Cf. Pierre de Coubertin, La Campagne d’Education phy-
sique: XVII. Chicago ou Saint Louis, L’Education physique 7, no. 10 (1908), 253-260.
3 Pierre de Coubertin, Olympism: Selected Writings, ed. Norbert Müller (Lausanne: International Olympic Committee,
2000), 695.
4 Françoise Hache, Les Jeux Olympiques. La flamme de l’exploit (Paris: Gallimard, 1992), 38. Guttmann, The Olympics. A
History of the Modern Games (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 26. Quel Corps ?, Coubertin,
l’Olympisme et Berlin 36, Quel Corps ?, no. 16 (1980), 32.
5 George M. Fredrickson, Racism. A Short History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 70.
6 Reynaud C. Paligot, La République raciale. 1860-1930 (Paris: Presses Universitaires Françaises, 2006), 2.
7 Cf. Jean-Pierre Dozon, Frères et sujets. La France et l’Afrique en perspective (Paris: Flammarion, 2003). Françoise Vergès,
Le nègre n’est pas. Pas plus que le blanc. Frantz Fanon, esclavage, race et racisme, Actuel Marx 38 (2005), 45-64.
8 Gilles Manceron, Les « sauvages » et les droit de l’homme: un paradoxe républicain, in Zoos humains. De la vénus hot-
tentote aux reality shows. ed. Nicolas Bancel and others (Paris: Editions de la Découverte, 2002), 399-405.
9 “honteuses distinctions ;” Pierre de Coubertin, Universités transatlantiques (Paris: Hachette, 1890), 257.
10 Pierre de Coubertin, Universités transatlantiques (Paris: Hachette, 1890), 257-58.
11 Ibid., 259.
12 Ibid.
13 Pierre de Coubertin, La question nègre, Le Figaro, 26 September 1903, 1.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 Cf. Arthur de Gobineau, Essai sur l’inégalité des races humaines. Livres 1-6. (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1853-1855), Vol. I.
17 Pierre de Coubertin, Mes mémoires, in La vie et l’œuvre pédagogique de Pierre de Coubertin 1863-1837, Yves Pierre
Boulongne, (Ottawa: Leméac, 1975 [1936]), 460.
18 Pierre de Coubertin, Aux jeunes Français, Le Décalogue de 1915, Excelsior, 4 January 1915, 3.
19 Cf. Pierre de Coubertin, L’Évolution française sous la Troisième République (Paris: Hachette, 1898).
Pierre de Coubertin’s “Civilizing Mission” 61

20 Pierre de Coubertin, Ce que nous pouvons maintenant demander au Sport‘…Conférence faite à l'Association des
Hellènes Libéraux de Lausanne, le 24 février 1918. (Lausanne: Edition de l'Association des Hellènes Libéraux de Lau-
sanne, 1918), 12. Cf. Louis Callebat, Pierre de Coubertin (Paris: Fayard, 1988), 233.
21 Cf. Moshe Gershovich, Collaboration and ‘pacification:’ French conquest, Moroccan combatants, and the transforma-
tion of the Middle Atlas, ComparativeStudies of South Asia Africa and the Middle East 24, no. 1 (2004), 139-146. Ac-
cording to Fabrice Auger it seems that Coubertin had some influence on Lyautey and other important persons like
Théophile Delcasé, Jules Simon and the president Marie François Sadi Carnot. Cf. Fabrice Auger, Une histoire politique
du mouvement olympique: L’exemple de l’Entre-deux-guerres, (PhD diss. University Paris X-Nanterre, 1998), 190.
22 Quoted in Nicolas Bancel and Patrick Clastres, Pierre de Coubertin et Hubert Lyautey—Deux hommes d’action sociale,”
Les Etudes Sociales 137 (2003), 59.
23 Cf. e.g. Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Imperialismustheorien. Ein Überblick über die neueren Imperialismusinterpretatione,3rd
augmented edition (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987).
24 Cf. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973 [1951]).
25 Cf. Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, and Françoise Vergès, La République coloniale (Paris: Hachette, 2003), 68.
26 Cf. Dino Costantini, Mission civilisatrice. Le rôle de l’histoire coloniale dans la construction de l’identité politique française
(Paris: Editions de la Découverte, 2008).
27 Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, and Françoise Vergès. 2002. Zoos humains: entre Mythe et réalité, in Zoos humains.
De la vénus hottentote aux reality shows. ed. Nicolas Bancel and others (Paris: Editions de la Découverte, 2002), 13.
28 Cf. Henrietta Lidchi, The poetics and the politics of exhibiting other cultures, in Representation: Cultural Representations
and Signifying Practices, ed. Stuart (Hall London, Thousand Oaks. Sage, 1997), 151-223.
29 ibid., 198.
30 Unlike in 1889, there were no direct exhibitions of indigenous or “indigenous villages” as Alfred Picard, the director of
the Exhibition, judged those displays to be “used and outdated;” cf. Alfred Picard, Exposition Universelle de 1900 à Paris,
Vol. IV (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1902-03), 352.
31 Yves-Pierre Boulongne, The International Olympic Committee—One Hundred Years, vol. I (Lausanne: International Ol-
ympic Committee, 1994), 121.
32 Pierre de Coubertin, Une campagne de vingt-et-un ans (Paris: Librairie de l’Education Physique, 1909). Quoted from
Coubertin, Selected Writings, 2000, 389.
33 Cf. Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, and Françoise Vergès, La République coloniale (Paris: Hachette, 2003), 96.
34 Pierre de Coubertin, Chronique de France, vol. II (Auxerre: A. Lanier, 1902), 194.
35 Pierre de Coubertin, La fille sauvage, Revue du Pays de Caux 1, (1902), 38-39.
36 Pierre de Coubertin, Le drame sud-africain, Revue du pays de Caux 2, (1902), 69.
37 Cf. Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism (London and NewYork: Routledge, 2004), 126.
38 Pierre de Coubertin, France on the wrong track, American Monthly Review of Reviews 23, no. 4 (1901), 449.
39 Pierre de Coubertin, La fille sauvage, Revue du Pays de Caux, 1 (1902), 38-39.
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid., 38.
42 Ibid., 38.
43 Pierre de Coubertin, Pages d’histoire contemporaine (Paris: Plon, 1909), 4.
44 Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, Post-Colonial Studies. The Key Concepts (London: Routledge, ), 201.
45 Pierre de Coubertin, Colonisation Sportive, Bulletin du Bureau International de Pédagogie Sportive 5 (1931), 12.
46 Pierre de Coubertin, L’urgente Réforme, La Nouvelle Revue, 1st April 1899, 386. Cf. Pierre de Coubertin, Un Collège
modèle, Revue pour les Français 1 (1906), 379-399.
47 Cf. ibid.
48 Pierre de Coubertin, Le Sport et la Société moderne, Discours prononcé en Sorbonne, en présence de Raymond Poin-
caré, Président de la République, à l'occasion du XXème anniversaire du rétablissement des Jeux Olympiques, La Revue
Hebdomadaire, 20 June 1914, 383.
49 Cf. Bernadette Deville-Danthu, Le sport en noir et blanc (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1996), 24.
50 Pierre de Coubertin, Colonisation Sportive, Bulletin du Bureau International de Pédagogie Sportive 5 (1931), 12-14.
Quoted from Coubertin, Selected Writings, 2000, 704.
51 Ibid.
62

52 Pierre de Coubertin, La géographie sportive, Revue Olympique 11, no. 4 (1911), 51.
53 Pierre de Coubertin, Les sports et la Colonisation, Revue Olympique, 12 (1912), 9.
54 Pierre de Coubertin, Discours prononcé par le président du Comité à la séance inaugurale en présence de S.M. le Roi
d’Italie, le 7 avril 1923, in Session de 1923, tenue au Capitole, Rome, ed. Comité International Olympique (Lausanne:
Impr. La Concorde, 1923), 5.
55 Cf. Fabrice Auger, Une histoire politique du mouvement olympique: L’exemple de l’Entre-deux-guerres (PhD diss. Paris:
University Paris X-Nanterre, 1998). Nicolas Bancel and Jean-Marc Gayman, Du guerrier à l’athlète. Eléments d’histoire
de pratiques corporelles (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2002). Otto Schantz, Le « Gymnase de la Cité »—Le
droit au sport pour les citadins selon Pierre de Coubertin, in Le Sport dans la ville, ed. Christian Vivier and François Loud-
cher (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1998), 15-27.
56 Pierre de Coubertin, L’Eugénie, Revue Olympique 12 (1912), 164.
57 Ibid.
58 Pierre de Coubertin, Olympic memoirs (Lausanne: IOC, 1989 [1932]), 119. Cf. Louis Callebat, Pierre de Coubertin (Paris,
Fayard, 1988), 234.
59 Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, and Françoise Vergès, Zoos humains: entre Mythe et réalité, in Zoos humains. De la
vénus hottentote aux reality shows. ed. Nicolas Bancel and others (Paris: Editions de la Découverte, 2002), 11.
60 Pierre de Coubertin, Histoire universelle, Vol I (Aix-en-Provence: Société de l’Histoire Universelle,1926), XI.
61 Ibid., XII.
62 Neil MacMaster, Racism in Europe 1870-2000 (Hampshire, New York: Palgrave, 2001).
63 Cf. Otto Schantz, Le « Gymnase de la Cité »—Le droit au sport pour les citadins selon Pierre de Coubertin, in Le Sport
dans la ville, ed. Christian Vivier and François Loudcher (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1998), 15-27. Patrick Cholley, Pierre de
Coubertin, La deuxième croisade (Lausanne: Comité International Olympique, 1995).
64 Cf. Jürgen Osterhammel, ’The Great Work of Uplifting Mankind,’ and, Moderne, in Zivilisierungsmissionen. Imperiale
Weltverbesserung seit dem 18. Jahrhundert, eds. Boris Barth and Jürgen Osterhammel (Konstanz: UVK Verlagsgesell-
schaft 2005), 363-425.