In-depth look at the 1960 Summer Games, and in general, a very honest and balanced survey, which takes into account some of the scoring and judging controversies, as well as some of the behind-the-scenes wrangling. The farce of an attempted subornation of a Russian athlete for defection gets, perhaps, a little too much play, and some of the sports show up hardly at all. In addition, except for a sprinkling of athletes, it's mostly the American, Russian and German athletes that get the attention. Still, a generally better job than I have seen from the Olympic Century series of books (the entry for Rome I have not yet read, so I cannot directly compare it). I do have a complaint about the over-wrought title, which is rather overblown. ( )

In Rome 1960, Pulitzer Prize winner David Maraniss brings his marvelous prose back to the world of sports and chronicles the Olympic Games at the center of global change. Maraniss has written on sports before, penning biographies of both Vince Lombardi and Roberto Clemente, but Rome 1960 looks at the broader cultural impacts the Seventeenth Olympiad had on the world and the effect the world’s changing social mores had on the Olympics.

While Maraniss devotes much of his narrative to the individual events and their results, the meat of this story is in his argument that the Rome Olympics were placed at a crossroads of both the sporting world and global society as a whole, the biggest of these changes clearly represented by women’s track and field coach Ed Temple and his Tennessee State Tigerbelles, led by superstar speedster Wilma Rudolph. The United States sent its best athletes to Italy, yet a majority of those athletes were black and subject to severe discrimination back home. The success of America’s black athletes in the Olympics made it significantly more difficult for Americans like Tennessee Governor Buford Ellington to say things like “it is in the best interests of all Tennesseans to prevent the mixing of the races.”

The twentieth century’s other major racial struggle also reared its head when International Olympic Committee president Avery Brundage continually rebuffed the attempts by South Africa’s black population to force the recognition of the South African Olympic Committee’s entrenched, institutional racism. While they were allowed to participate in 1960, it would be the apartheid regime’s last Olympic Games and the nation would not participate again until 1992.

Other major social issues brought to light in Rome were the first known uses of performance enhancing drugs and the last performance of a unified German team until 1992. Also discussed is the conflict between The People’s Republic of China and Chiang Kai-Shek’s Republic of China administration, which had been declaring itself the true government of China while operating from Taiwan. The PRC continued its boycott of the games, refusing to recognize the ROC government while Brundage tried to remain neutral in the conflict, allowing the ROC to compete as “Taiwan,” but not as “China.”

There is a wonderful amount of detail in this book, such as the likely botched ruling in the final of the 100-meter freestyle swimming final, which deprived American Lance Larson of a gold medal and a young Cassius Clay’s difficulties getting to Italy because of his pathological fear of flying. Rome 1960 will be a wonderful read for any lover of sport and for anybody interested in how society affects sports and how the Olympics can change the world. ( )

It is fitting this book mentions Jim McKay and his nascent Olympic TV coverage of 1960. This book is like watching an american broadcast. Only the greatest of the foreign athletes warrant any mention. The book seems at first look typical of the American psyche where they find heroes out of disaster. For example American historians of The Battle of the Bulge say ti was not a horrible screwup where the entire USA army was caught off guard by the only plan the Germans had ever used to attack western Europe, it was the moment of Patton the hero! And this book to a annoying degree focuses on Americans athletes, but to be fair it spends much of its time with the disappointing losses of the American men on the track.

Overall though, this is a fine book. Maraniss is a great historian and he effectively, and patiently, puts each performance into the bigger picture of 1960. Another strong point is the sensible look at Cassius Clay. He does his best to sort the legend from reality and paoints a compelling picture of a brash kid, with talent, not the iconic hero that would become Ali. ( )

Reviewed by Mr. Johnson (Social Studies)
It tells the story of the 1960 Olympics. It focuses on Wilma Rudolph, Cassius Clay, and Rafer Johnson. These athletes and others are portrayed during the Olympics as the times are changing from a more innocent time, to a time affected by the Cold War and the social changes that the 1960s are bringing, not only to the US, but also the world. Very good read. ( )

(#49 in the 2008 Book Challenge)

I must still have lingering Olympic fever from this summer. The author goes through the Rome Olympics, pretty much day by day, and highlights the significant events and puts them in the context of what was going on in the world at large ... so for the most part, the Cold War. Headlines include decathlete Rafer Johnson, the first African-American athlete to be the flag bearer during the opening ceremonies and Wilma Rudolph getting gold medals; the first big Olympic drug scandal when Danish cyclist Knud Jensen dies after heat exhaustion is escalated by drug use; the Republic of China marches as Formosa for the first time (and I'm not really clear why they still compete as Formosa and not Taiwan), and Ethiopian Abebe Bikila wins the mens' marathon running barefoot. And more!

The funny thing about this book was that it wasn't ... great sports writing, and if you are a sports fan, you are hoping, of course, that a book about the Rome Olympics is going to be so full of awesome sports that you choke on your own enthusiasm. Because so much of the book is spent explaining the nuances of the political climate, particularly the Cold War but also apartheid, civil rights in the US, and the role of women in athletics, you are trading some of the edgy excitement for fairly substantial insight. Which seems fine in the end, you can always go google up a storm later and cry your sporty tears while watching poor quality youtube clips of Rafer Johnson lighting the torch at Los Angeles. Did you know that Johnson was one of the guys that tackled Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel?

Also, I am one of those people who has mixed feelings about gymnastics as an Olympic sport, in part because the age of the girls in particular is somewhat unsettling, but mostly because I'm not crazy about judged competitions, but whatever, I'm not rabid about the issue or anything. It seems that in Rome, the organizers held two events at landmark sites, gymnastics at the Baths of Caracalla and wrestling at the Basilica of Maxentius. I think this is such a fabulous idea that I would be completely on board with a requirement that all Olympic cities must hold gymnastics and wrestling at out-of-doors ancient landmarks.

Grade: Very strong B+
Recommended: Anyone who enjoys sports and the Olympics would enjoy this, even if only to browse though it. People who don't care for sports won't have much interest unless they have a particular interest in Cold War social history. ( )