"This is one of the greatest sports stories ever told: How a group of young oarsmen from the Pacific Northwest who could barely afford train fare to Chicago, much less Berlin, won gold medals in the famous Hitler Olympics of 1936. There are two gripping tales here, and Michael Socolow tells them both well. First, there is the David v. Goliath saga of the University of Washington crew team upsetting every Ivy League crew in America to travel to Berlin, where the Huskies prevailed over the greatest crews the world had ever seen. The second story is the birth of modern broadcast sports journalism. What would later become the "wide world of sports" was born in Berlin, where American radio networks implemented new technologies on an almost daily basis to bring their listeners sporting events in "real time"--an amazing accomplishment that we now take for granted. Socolow successfully weaves these two fascinating tales into one enthralling book. Bravo!"--Alex Beam, Boston Globe columnist
"Michael Socolow's Six Minutes in Berlin is an astute scholarly work and an enthralling piece of nonfiction, a book that reveals the human drama of the 1936 Olympics and illuminates the technology that brought it to the world."--Josh Levin, executive editor, Slate
"Sports, Nazism, and the glory days of radio come together seamlessly in Michael Socolow's gripping account of the hottest ticket at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the Olympic Regatta. Offering expert play-by-play and vivid color commentary, Socolow provides a fascinating look at an epochal moment in sports and media history. Six Minutes in Berlin is a crystal-clear window into the birth of global journalism and trans-national fandom, shadowed throughout by the specter of a more ominous competition on the horizon."--Thomas Doherty, Brandeis University