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.