For Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the study of history was a lifelong passion.  From his writings, you get the sense that history was like intellectual intoxication to him.  He had an exquisite sense of the past—and developed his own set of educational theories on the best way to teach the cross-cultural dimensions of the progress of civilizations across the continents of our world.  The revival of the Olympic Games was, perhaps, the ultimate expression of his obsession with the past.  He believed the Hellenism of the ancient Greeks had much to teach the modern world—and the Olympic Games could serve as an educational platform for those ancient lessons.  At the age of 64, he published a four volume “Universal History” of the world, which served in many ways as the culmination of his lifelong study.  This quote, which is taken from “The Unfinished Symphony,” which the Baron wrote in 1936, clearly indicates that history was a refuge from the hard passage of life he was then going through.  He found solace from the trials of old age and poverty in a deep communion with the past. 

“All through my life, universal history, of which I have been so fond—even from my schooldays—has remained closely linked with all my thoughts and reflections and I have always felt that it could not be ignored if one wanted to comprehend collective life in its entirety. For me, it has been not only a constant source of inspiration but also, in moments of sorrow and pain, a source of real consolation.”