This New York Times best-selling author's account of the 1936 Olympics
in Berlin offers a "vivid portrait not just of Owens but of '30s Germany
and America" (Sports Illustrated).
At the 1936 Olympics, against a backdrop of swastikas and goose-stepping
storm troopers, an African American son of sharecroppers won a
staggering four gold medals, single-handedly falsifying Hitler's myth of
Aryan supremacy.
The story of Jesse Owens at the Berlin games is that of an athletic
performance that transcends sports. It is also the intimate and complex
tale of one remarkable man's courage. Drawing on unprecedented access to
the Owens family, previously unpublished interviews, and archival
research, Jeremy Schaap transports us to Germany and tells the dramatic
tale of Owens and his fellow athletes at the contest dubbed the Nazi
Olympics.
With incisive reporting and rich storytelling, Schaap reveals what
really happened over those tense, exhilarating weeks in a "snappy and
dramatic" work of sports history (Publishers Weekly).
"A remarkable job of tackling a complex subject and bringing it to
life." -- John Feinstein
"Add[s] even more luster to the indelibly heroic achievements of Jesse
Owens." -- Ken Burns