All the World's Stage

David Maraniss traveled back to the Rome Olympics of 1960, when Cassius Clay and other global luminaries competed in the shadow of the Cold War.

Max Lakin

As social barometers go, the Olympics are still one of the most potent in our collective global laboratory. The Games absorb all the world's successes and shortcomings and refract them back upon itself. At their best, the Olympics work to accelerate progress among us; at their worst, they at least offer up a spectacle.