King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero (Picador Classic, 34) - Softcover

Remnick, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1447289552 ISBN 13: 9781447289555

Publisher: Picador, 2015

Synopsis

With an introduction by Salman Rushdie and an afterword by the author.

It was the night of February 25, 1964. A cloud of cigar smoke drifted through the ring lights. Cassius Clay threw punches into the gray floating haze and waited for the bell.

When Cassius Clay burst onto the sports scene in the 1950s, he broke the mould. He changed the world of sports and went on to change the world itself: from his early fights as Cassius Clay, the young, wiry man from Louisville, unwilling to play the noble and grateful warrior in a white world, to becoming Muhammad Ali, the voice of black America and the most recognized face on the planet.

King of the World is the story of an incredible rise to power, a book of battles fought inside the ring and out. With grace and power, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer David Remnick tells of a transcendent athlete and entertainer, a rapper before rap was born. Ali was a mirror of his era, a dynamic figure in the racial and cultural clashes of his time and King of the World is a classic piece of non-fiction and a book worthy of America's most dynamic modern hero.

About this title

Review:

You'd think there wouldn't be much left to say about a living icon like Muhammad Ali, yet David Remnick imbues King of the World with all the freshness and vitality this legendary fighter displayed in his prime. Beginning with the pre-Ali days of boxing and its two archetypes, Floyd Patterson (the good black heavyweight) and Sonny Liston (the bad black heavyweight), Remnick deftly sets the stage for the emergence of a heavyweight champion the likes of which the world had never seen: a three-dimensional, Technicolor showman, fighter and minister of Islam, a man who talked almost as well as he fought. But mostly Remnick's portrait is of a man who could not be confined to any existing stereotypes, inside the ring or out.

In extraordinary detail, Remnick depicts Ali as a creation of his own imagination as we follow the wilful and mercurial young Cassius Clay from his boyhood and watch him hone and shape himself to a figure who would eventually command centre stage in one of the most volatile decades in our history. To Remnick it seems clear that Ali's greatest accomplishment is to prove beyond a doubt that not only is it possible to challenge the implacable forces of the establishment (the noir-ish, gangster-ridden fight game and the ethos of a whole country) but, with the right combination of conviction and talent, to triumph over these forces. --Fred Haefele

Review:

Succeeds more than any previous book in bringing Ali into focus . . . as a starburst of energy, ego and ability whose like will never be seen again (Wall Street Journal)

Penetrating . . . reveals details that even close followers might not have known. . . . An amazing story (New York Times)

Nearly pulse-pounding narrative power . . . an important account of a period in American social history (Chicago Tribune)

A pleasure . . . haunting . . . so vivid that one can imagine Ali saying, "How'd you get inside my head, boy?" (Time)

By now we all have our notions about what Ali meant - to his time and to the history of his sport. Of course David Remnick sheds light on these subjects, but where King of the World really shines is in the ring itself. With telling detail, Remnick captures the drama, danger, beauty, and ugliness of a generation's worth of big heavyweight fights (Bob Costa)

Astute, double-hearted, irresistible. He is so completely in charge of his craft that it becomes an art. (Toni Morrison, author of Beloved)

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1447289552
• ISBN 13: 9781447289555
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352