A critically acclaimed author and journalist edits this collection of the best sportswriting from the past year. Not just for readers of the sports page, this years selections embrace the world of sports in all its drama, humanity, and excitement.

Who exactly is Bill Clinton, and why was he, of all the brilliant and ambitious men in his generation, the first in his class to reach the White House? Drawing on hundreds of letters, documents, and interviews, David Maraniss explores the evolution of the personality of our forty-second president from his youth in Arkansas to his 1991 announcement that he would run for the nation's highest office. In this richly textured and balanced biography, Maraniss reveals a complex man full of great flaws and great talents. First in His Class is the definitive book on Bill Clinton.

PRIZEWINNING WASHINGTON POST JOURNALISTS REVEAL HOW REALITY GAGGED THE GINGRICH REVOLUTION
Speaker Newt Gingrich and his troops promised a revolution when they seized power in January 1995. The year that followed was one of the most fascinating and tumultuous in modern American history. After stunning early success with the Contract with America, the Republicans began to lose momentum; by year's end Gingrich was isolated and uncertain, and his closest allies were telling him to shut up.
Here is an unprecedented, fly-on-the-wall look at the successes, sellouts, and...

In this groundbreaking biography, David Maraniss captures all of football great Vince Lombardi: the myth, the man, his game, and his God.

More than any other sports figure, Vince Lombardi transformed football into a metaphor of the American experience. The son of an Italian immigrant butcher, Lombardi toiled for twenty frustrating years as a high school coach and then as an assistant at Fordham, West Point, and the New York Giants before his big break came at age forty-six with the chance to coach a struggling team in snowbound Wisconsin. His leadership of the Green Bay Packers to five...

Here is the epic story of Vietnam and the sixties told through the events of a few gripping, passionate days of war and peace in October 1967. They Marched Into Sunlight brings that tumultuous time back to life while exploring questions about the meaning of dissent and the official manipulation of truth, issues as relevant today as they were decades ago.

In a seamless narrative, Maraniss weaves together the stories of three very different worlds: the death and heroism of soldiers in Vietnam, the anger and anxiety of antiwar students back home, and the confusion and obfuscating...

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "When Pride Still Mattered" comes a book destined to become a modern classic--a full-scale biography of great baseball player and humanitarian Roberto Clemente, who lived, played, and died with enduring passion and grace. of photos.

On New Year's Eve 1972, following eighteen magnificent seasons in the major leagues, Roberto Clemente died a hero's death, killed in a plane crash as he attempted to deliver food and medical supplies to Nicaragua after a devastating earthquake. David Maraniss now brings the great baseball player brilliantly back to life in Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero, a book destined to become a modern classic. Much like his acclaimed biography of Vince Lombardi, When Pride Still Mattered, Maraniss uses his narrative sweep and meticulous detail to capture the myth...

This sterling collection of original, never-before-published essays on six fascinating contemporary presidents by some of the leading presidential biographers of our time is must reading for anyone interested in American politics, the history of the American presidency, or the lives of the presidents. Each essay--extending and elaborating on lectures originally delivered as part of the Montgomery Lecture Series at Dartmouth University--explores how a particular president came to power, wielded power, and was changed by power, and how each presidency affected the power of the office itself....

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.

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...

INTO THE STORY is the first collection of the work of David Maraniss, one of the most honored and versatile writers of his generation. The thirty-two stories here cover a rich array of topics, ranging from seminal moments in modern history to intimate personal reflections, each piece illuminated by the author's deep reporting and singular sensibility.