Book Description
There were mythic sports figures before him--Jack
Johnson, Babe Ruth, Joe Louis, Joe DiMaggio--but when Cassius
Clay burst onto the sports scene from his native Louisville
in the 1950s, he broke the mold. He changed the world of
sports and went on to change the world itself. As Muhammad
Ali, he would become the most recognized face on the planet.
Ali was a transcendent athlete and entertainer, a heavyweight
Fred Astaire, a rapper before rap was born. He was a mirror
of his era, a dynamic figure in the racial and cultural
battles of his time. This unforgettable story of his rise and
self-creation, told by a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer,
places Ali in a heritage of great American originals.
Cassius Clay grew up in the Jim Crow South and came of
athletic age when boxers were at the mercy of the mob. From
the start, Clay rebelled against everything and everyone who
would keep him and his people down. He refused the old
stereotypes and refused the glad hand of the mob. And, to the
confusion and fury of white sportswriters, who were far more
comfortable with the self-effacing Joe Louis, Clay came
forward as a rebel, insistent on his political views, on his
new religion, and, eventually, on a new name. His rebellion
nearly cost him the chance to fight for the heavyweight
championship of the world.
King of the World features some of the pivotal figures of the
1960s--Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammad, John F. Kennedy--and its
pivotal events: the civil rights movement, political
assassinations, the war in Vietnam. Muhammad Ali is a great
hero and a beloved figure in American life. King of the World
takes us back to the days when his life was a series of
battles, inside the ring and out. A master storyteller at the
height of his powers, David Remnick has written a book worthy
of America's most dynamic modern hero.
