King of the World
Remnick, David. King of the World. 1999. (796.8309 Ali.M Remni.D)
Remnick opens the story on February 25, 1964, when Muhammad Ali was twenty-two and about to face the fierce heavyweight champion Sonny Liston: "for the first and last time in his life, [Ali] was afraid." It's a shrewd distillation of a historic moment. Not many expected Ali to win--just as not many expected him to become arguably the dominant personality of late twentieth-century America.
In his youth, Ali [then Cassius Clay] wasn't out to show the world "a new kind of black man," but Remnick powerfully illustrates how his nonconformist nature and the politics of his time collided to launch him on that trajectory. Besides emerging as an artistic boxer (and even a poetic one), Ali became a force in the civil rights movement, a voice for Muslim Americans, and a compelling opponent of the war in Vietnam. This is an outstanding character study as well as a valuable chapter of American history. (Jeff B., Reader's Services)
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