Rome 1960: The Olympics That Changed the World
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. Amazon.com Review From Publishers Weekly From The Washington Post Reviewed by Jamie Malanowski Seldom is a book as ill-served by its subtitle as is David Maraniss's Rome 1960: The Olympics That Changed the World. Maraniss resolutely illuminates every long-running story that enjoyed a chapter at these summer games, and there are many: the Cold War rivalry, waged not only between the United States and the U.S.S.R. but also between their satellites and surrogates; the struggle for racial and gender equality in sports and in American society writ large; the assertion of pride by newly independent Third World nations; and the burgeoning influence of drugs, money and television on athletics. It's true, as Maraniss writes in his preface, that "in sports, culture and politics -- interwoven in so many ways -- one could see an old order dying and a new one being born" in August 1960. But some 400 pages and weeks of exciting events later, one sees these games less as a turning point than as just another step along the road. Aside from the overreaching subtitle, Maraniss has written a colorful, fast-moving and often dramatic book. He chose an underexposed subject: Despite the tremendous performances of American athletes such as the young and irrepressible Cassius Clay, as well as the legendary triumph of the barefoot Ethiopian runner Abebe Bikila, the Rome Olympics are not remembered as vividly as the games in Mexico City, Montreal or Munich. Television, and its ability to turn medal winners into superstars of sport and advertising, made the difference; the Rome Olympics were the first to capture a significant TV audience, but coverage was still slight by today's standards. In 1960, as Maraniss explains, film of events was flown across the Atlantic via commercial airliner to New York, where it was cut, if it arrived in time, for the CBS Evening News, or for a 15-minute late-night recap narrated by Jim McKay. In that way, the games in Rome certainly changed television history: A then little-known ABC producer named Roone Arledge saw the programs, which led him to create "Wide World of Sports" with McKay as host. Maraniss, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and editor at The Washington Post, set a very high standard with his excellent books on Bill Clinton, Vince Lombardi and Roberto Clemente. His great strength as a biographer is his ability to dig deeply into his subject's story and bring out important themes over time. The nature of the Olympics, in which so many events are held in rapid succession over a compressed period, and in which most athletes perform only a few times on a few days, deprives him of his best asset. In his biography of Lombardi, When Pride Still Mattered, Maraniss showed how the coach honed his approach during stops at Fordham, West Point and with the New York Giants long before he reached the frozen tundra of Green Bay's Lambeau Field. In Rome 1960, the author simply lacks the space to build, even though he begins the stories of some of his central figures, including the effervescent sprinter Wilma Rudolph and the dignified decathlete Rafer Johnson, years before the games. Their victories, which are tales not only of athletic prowess but also of triumph over racial bigotry, are uplifting. But even so, Maraniss has to spread his attention around, and his stars become ensemble players. The book is like a dim sum brunch: lots of dishes that come and go, some before you're altogether ready to move on. Because of this, oddly enough, the stories in the book that stand out are those of performers whose efforts have faded from memory, among them C.K. Yang, the decathlete from Taiwan who almost beat his friend Johnson; India's Milkha Singh, the "Flying Sikh," who became a national hero after he broke the Olympic record in the 400-meter dash, even though three other runners were faster and he did not win a medal; and hard-luck American sprinter Dave Sime, who, after missing the 1956 Melbourne games with an injury, and after being nipped at Rome in the 100-meter dash, led his team to victory in the 4 x 100 relay, only to have the performance disqualified because of a teammate's error. (Sime did come home with a story even rarer than that of a triumphant athlete: He was approached by the CIA to act as an intermediary in an effort to persuade a Soviet athlete to defect; Sime was a reluctant conspirator and, in any event, the effort failed. But it adds a bit of Cold War suspense to the book.) Maraniss does a splendid job of resurrecting these heroes from almost a half-century ago, and of reminding us why we like the Olympics: They are days devoted to spirited young people with rare talents and tremendous discipline who vie for a moment in the sun that, for all but a few, is swiftly eclipsed by the triumphs of another day. Sports Buff- A must Overblown premis not supported by facts For the AgesProduct Details
Editorial Reviews
Amazon Best of the Month, July 2008: Armed with the same engaging narrative found in Clemente and When Pride Still Mattered, Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Maraniss chronicles the triumphs, tragedies, and treacheries of "the Olympics that changed the world" with Rome 1960. The same Games that announced the greatness of icons like Cassius Clay, Wilma Rudolph, and Rafer Johnson, also exposed a growing unrest between East and West, black and white, and male and female. Even the host city of Rome, Maraniss recounts, was "infused with a golden hue...an illuminating that comes with a moment of historical transition, when one era is dying and another is being born." With moving portraits of the Games's remarkable personalities woven among tales of espionage and propaganda, Rome 1960 explores an Olympics unable to fight off the troubles of the modern world. Cold War sniping and issues of social inequalities were spilling into fields and stadiums, and the face of sport was rapidly changing. History buffs and sports fans alike will appreciate Maraniss’s quiet reporting, as he deftly removes himself from a storyline that is still relevant today. --Dave Callanan
Overshadowed by more flamboyant or tragic Olympics, the 1960 Rome games were a sociopolitical watershed, argues journalist Maraniss (Clemente) in this colorful retrospective. The games showcased Cold War propaganda ploys as the Soviet Union surged past the U.S. in the medal tally. Steroids and amphetamines started seeping into Olympian bloodstreams. The code of genteel amateurism—one weight-lifter was forbidden to accept free cuts from a meat company—began crumbling in the face of lavish Communist athletic subsidies and under-the-table shoe endorsement deals. And civil rights and anticolonialism became conspicuous themes as charismatic black athletes—supercharged sprinter Wilma Rudolph, brash boxing phenom Cassius Clay, barefoot Ethiopian marathoner Abebe Bikila—grabbed the limelight while the IOC sidestepped the apartheid issue. Still, we're talking about the Olympics, and Maraniss can't help wallowing in the classic tropes: personal rivalries, judging squabbles, come-from-behind victories and inspirational backstories of obstacles overcome (Rudolph wins the gold, having hurdled Jim Crow and childhood polio that left her in leg braces). As usual, these Olympic stories don't quite bear up under the mythic symbolism they're weighted with (with the exception perhaps of Abebe Bikila), but Maraniss provides an intelligent context for his evocative reportage. Photos. (July)
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Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.Customer Reviews
If you ever watched the Olympics or a sport you should read this. Or a trivia buff-again read it. You forget that many of us were born when the Berlin wall went up and alot of us saw it fall, it is a story of so many we see today and how they started. If you are a starting athlete of any kind read it-be inspired
In reading this book I found myself torn in several different directions. But then again so did David Maraniss. He seems to want to tell the story of why the 1960 Olympics were so important but he can not find out what means he wants to use to do so. On the one hand he wants us to believe this is when the Olympics went from being amateur to more professional, but yet doesn't. He also speaks of these games as the first ones where drugs were used but then speaks of how they were used before and came to their peak in the 1970's and 80's.
Maraniss's wants us to believe that these games were when politics took over the games but then gives examples from 1936,1956,1968,1972 and 1976 when the games faced greater political obstacles. Lastly, he wants to tell the stories of the great athletes who competed at these games. I believe that the last part is the books one and only bright spot and that Maraniss would have done a much better job of focusing on them.
Basically I found this a rather dull and confusing read and unless you have a great interest in this period, is probably not worth your time. There are much better sports books out there and somebody does need to write one about Mexico City in 1968 or Melbourne in 1956!
Mr. Maraniss takes us back to the Rome Olympics in 1960. With loving detail he recreates that watershed moment when the Cold War first seriously collided with the sporting world. He reintroduces us to the sporting heroes of a bygone era. Greats like Wilma Rudolph, Ralph Bunch, Abebe Bikila and Rafer Johnson are recognized for their place in history. We meet the young Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali)in all his brash insecurity. This is the moment when drugs first creeps onto the Olympic stage and when amateurism is being questioned. This a fascinating read.
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