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Muhammad Ali
The Making of an Icon
Michael Ezra
Temple University Press, 2009

Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Clay) has always engendered an emotional reaction from the public. From his appearance as an Olympic champion to his iconic status as a national hero, his carefully constructed image and controversial persona has always been intensely scrutinized. In Muhammad Ali, Michael Ezra considers the boxer who calls himself “The Greatest” from a new perspective. He writes about Ali’s pre-championship bouts, the management of his career and his current legacy, exploring the promotional aspects of Ali and how they were wrapped up in political, economic, and cultural “ownership.”

Ezra’s incisive study examines the relationships between Ali’s cultural appeal and its commercial manifestations. Citing examples of the boxer’s relationship to the Vietnam War and the Nation of Islam—which serve as barometers of his “public moral authority”—Muhammad Ali analyzes the difficulties of creating and maintaining these cultural images, as well as the impact these themes have on Ali’s meaning to the public.

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Muhammad Ali, the People's Champ
Edited by Elliott J. Gorn
University of Illinois Press, 1995
For years recognized as the world's best-known athlete, Muhammad Ali played a fascinating role in American culture, with an influence that reached far beyond sports and, in many ways, defined his times. Ali the boxer stood side by side with Ali the vocal Black Muslim, Ali the cultural force, Ali the anti-war protestor, Ali the celebrity, Ali the narcissist, and more. In Muhammad Ali, the People's Champ, experts unpack Ali's various incarnations to build a vivid portrait of an iconic figure in the ring of public history and reveal how he touched people's lives in ways unprecedented by any sports figure before or since.
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The Rumble in the Jungle
Muhammad Ali and George Foreman on the Global Stage
Lewis A. Erenberg
University of Chicago Press, 2019
The 1974 fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, staged in the young nation of Zaire and dubbed the Rumble in the Jungle, was arguably the biggest sporting event of the twentieth century. The bout between an ascendant undefeated champ and an outspoken master trying to reclaim the throne was a true multimedia spectacle. A three-day festival of international music—featuring James Brown, Miriam Makeba, and many others—preceded the fight itself, which was viewed by a record-breaking one billion people worldwide. Lewis A. Erenberg’s new book provides a global perspective on this singular match, not only detailing the titular fight but also locating it at the center of the cultural dramas of the day.

TheRumble in the Jungle orbits around Ali and Foreman, placing them at the convergence of the American Civil Rights movement and the Great Society, the rise of Islamic and African liberation efforts, and the ongoing quest to cast off the shackles of colonialism. With his far-reaching take on sports, music, marketing, and mass communications, Erenberg shows how one boxing match became nothing less than a turning point in 1970s culture.
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There Will Always Be Boxing
Another Year Inside the Sweet Science
Thomas Hauser
University of Arkansas Press, 2017
In 2016, Booklist observed, “Thomas Hauser is a treasure. Whatever he writes is worth reading. Boxing is blessed that he has focused so much of his career on the sweet science.”

There Will Always Be Boxing continues this tradition of excellence. A poignant look at Muhammad Ali—whose life was celebrated throughout the world following his death on June 3, 2016—highlights this collection of Hauser’s work. The year’s biggest fights are, as always, put in perspective. And once again, Hauser takes readers behind the scenes, giving them a seat at the table with boxing’s biggest power brokers as he reveals the inner workings of the sport and business of boxing.

There Will Always Be Boxing is sure not to disappoint the readers, writers, and critics who look forward to Hauser’s annual collection of articles about the contemporary boxing scene. This collection shows, once again, why Hauser is one of the last real champions of boxing and one of the very best who has ever written about the sport.

 
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What's My Name
Black Vernacular Intellectuals
Grant Farred
University of Minnesota Press, 2003

Whom does society consider an intellectual and on what grounds? Antonio Gramsci’s democratic vision of intelligence famously suggested that “all men are intellectuals,” yet within academic circles and among the general public, intellectuals continue to be defined by narrow, elite criteria. 

In this study of four celebrated citizens of the African diaspora—American boxer Muhammad Ali, West Indian Marxist critic C. L. R. James, British cultural theorist Stuart Hall, and Jamaican musician Bob Marley—Grant Farred develops a new category of engaged thinker: the vernacular intellectual. Extending Gramsci’s concept of the organic intellectual, Farred conceives of vernacular intellectuals as individuals who challenge social injustice from inside and outside traditional academic or political spheres. Muhammad Ali, for example, is celebrated as much for his dazzling verbal skills and courageous political stands as for his pugilistic talents; Bob Marley’s messages of liberation are as central to his popularity as his lyrical and melodic sophistication. Neither man is described as an intellectual, yet both perform crucial intellectual functions: shaping how people see the world, oppose hegemony, and understand their own history. In contrast, the careers of C. L. R. James and Stuart Hall reflect a dynamic blend of the traditional and the vernacular. Conventionally trained and situated,  James and Hall examine racism, history, and the lasting impact of colonialism in ways that draw on both established scholarship and more popular cultural experiences.

Challenging existing paradigms, What’s My Name offers an expansive and inclusive vision of intellectual activity that is as valid and meaningful in the boxing ring, the press conference, and the concert hall as in academia.

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