Synopses & Reviews
From the critically acclaimed and bestselling author David Maraniss, a groundbreaking book that weaves sports, politics, and history into a tour de force about the 1960 Rome Olympics, eighteen days of theater, suspense, victory, and defeat
David Maraniss draws compelling portraits of the athletes competing in Rome, including some of the most honored in Olympic history: decathlete Rafer Johnson, sprinter Wilma Rudolph, Ethiopian marathoner Abebe Bikila, and Louisville boxer Cassius Clay, who at eighteen seized the world stage for the first time, four years before he became Muhammad Ali.
Along with these unforgettable characters and dramatic contests, there was a deeper meaning to those late-summer days at the dawn of the sixties. Change was apparent everywhere. The world as we know it was coming into view.
Rome saw the first doping scandal, the first commercially televised Summer Games, the first athlete paid for wearing a certain brand of shoes. Old-boy notions of Olympic amateurism were crumbling and could never be taken seriously again. In the heat of the cold war, the city teemed with spies and rumors of defections. Every move was judged for its propaganda value. East and West Germans competed as a unified team less than a year before the Berlin Wall.There was dispute over the two Chinas. An independence movement was sweeping sub-Saharan Africa, with fourteen nations in the process of being born. There was increasing pressure to provide equal rights for blacks and women as they emerged from generations of discrimination.
Using the meticulous research and sweeping narrative style that have become his trademark, Maraniss reveals the rich palate of character, competition, and meaning that gave Rome 1960 its singular essence.
Review
"[T]he author's wealth of sociohistorical knowledge that he also bestows upon the reader makes the book essential...Highly recommended." Library Journal
Review
"Evocative, entertaining and often suspenseful — sports history at a very high standard." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Maraniss does a splendid job of resurrecting these heroes from almost a half-century ago, and of reminding us why we like the Olympics." Washington Post
Synopsis
From the New York Times bestselling author of Clemente and When Pride Still Mattered, the blockbuster story of the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, seventeen days that helped define the modern world. Legendary athletes and stirring events are interwoven into a suspenseful narrative of sports and politics at the Rome games, where cold-war propaganda and spies, drugs and sex, money and television, civil rights and the rise of women superstars all converged to forever change the essence of the Olympics.
Using the meticulous research and sweeping narrative style that have become his trademark, maraniss reveals the rich palette of character, competition, and meaning that gave rome 1960 its singular essence.
Synopsis
From bestselling author Maraniss comes a groundbreaking book that weaves sports, politics, and history into a tour de force about the 1960 Rome Olympics.
Synopsis
Now in paperback, from the New York Times bestselling author of Clemente and When Pride Still Mattered, here is the blockbuster story of the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, seventeen days that helped define the modern world. andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;Legendary athletes and stirring events are interwoven into a suspenseful narrative of sports and politics at the Rome games, where cold-war propaganda and spies, drugs and sex, money and television, civil rights and the rise of women superstars all converged to forever change the essence of the Olympics. andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;Using the meticulous research and sweeping narrative style that have become his trademark, maraniss reveals the rich palette of character, competition, and meaning that gave rome 1960 its singular essence.
About the Author
David Maraniss is an associate editor at The Washington Post. He is the winner of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting and has been a Pulitzer finalist two other times for his journalism and again for They Marched Into Sunlight, a book about Vietnam and the sixties. The author also of bestselling works on Bill Clinton, Vince Lombardi, and Roberto Clemente, Maraniss is a fellow of the Society of American Historians. He and his wife, Linda, live in Washington, DC, and Madison, Wisconsin.
Table of Contents
A Brief Preface
1 All the Way to Moscow
2 All Roads to Rome
3 No Monarch Ever Held Sway
4 May the Best Man Win
5 Out of the Shadows
6 Heat
7 Quicker Than the Eye
8 Upside Down
9 Track and Field News
10 Black Thursday
Interlude: Descending with Gratitude
11 The Wind at Her Back
12 Liberation
13 The Russians Are Coming
14 The Greatest
15 The Last Laps
16 New Worlds
17 The Soft Life
18 "Successful Completion of the Job"
19 A Thousand Sentinels
20 "The World Is Stirring"
Appendix
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Sources
Notes
Index