In the 19th century, travelling carnivals roamed the American West, promising spectacular sideshows, games of skill, and unforgettable thrills. It was only after the roadshow had rolled on that the townsfolk, their pockets emptied, would realize they’d been had. In Five Ring Circus, Christopher Shaw, a professor of neuroscience at UBC and a co-founder of the advocacy group NO GAMES, argues that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) similarly prowls the globe in search of rubes.

Using the Vancouver bid process as a case study, Shaw reveals a system driven by profiteering real-estate developers and shows the IOC to be a “corporate parasite” that appears to pay no taxes on its massive – and unaudited – revenues. Five Ring Circus is also a requiem for NO GAMES’s lost cause, and an often disheartening account of the futility of opposing the Olympics.

The book is arranged and written academically – in the best sense of the word. It is divided into five sections (or “rings”) that analyze the Games and their history, the Vancouver bid and its fallout, and offer a basic guide to anti-Olympic activism. Each section is meticulously researched and convincingly argued, with the writing only occasionally slipping into personal accusations and self-congratulatory back-patting.

Shaw’s book is a first-rate exposé. It lays out information to which all Canadians (especially British Columbians) should have paid attention before Vancouver, blinded by Olympic hype, acquiesced to hosting the Games – and footing the bill.