A sweeping biography of one of the greatest and most provocative athletes of all time—“a life that needs to be understood whether you care a whit about boxing or not” (The Boston Globe).
Athlete, activist, rebel, poet, legend—Muhammad Ali stood larger than life in the imagination of hundreds of millions of people around the world. A gold medalist at the 1960 Olympics, he won the heavyweight championship at age twenty-two by conquering Sonny Liston in dramatic fashion. In the weeks after the upset victory, he confirmed his membership in the Nation of Islam and told reporters he would no longer answer to his “slave name”: Cassius Clay. The political establishment stripped him of his heavyweight title when he refused induction into the United States Army during the height of the war in Vietnam.
Ultimately, Ali returned to reclaim his crown, prevailing in epic fights against the likes of Joe Frazier and George Foreman. His...