From the Great Depression to Nazi Germany, The Boys in the Boat is the astonishing true story of the 1936 American men's eight rowing team on their quest for Olympic gold. It is considered one of the most difficult sports in the world. For Joe Rantz, it might be his only choice. Cast aside by his family at an early age, Joe was abandoned, left to fend for himself in the woods of Washington State. Like so many, he had to work his way through college. The rowing team offered money – and a home. An extraordinary journey follows, as Joe and eight other working-class boys exchange the sweat and dust of life in 1930s America for the promise of glory on the team – and at the Berlin Olympics, in the heart of Hitler’s Germany. With the weight of history on his shoulders, stroke by stroke, Joe strives to regain his shattered self-regard, to dare again to trust in others – and to find his way back home. Rising above the grand sweep of history, Daniel James Brown's The Boys in the Boat is a personal story of unexpected beauty, capturing the purest essence of what it means to be alive.