"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."--u003ciu003eThe Wall Street Journalu003c/iu003eu003cbru003eu003cbru003e"Best Nonfiction Book of the Year"--u003ciu003eTimeu003c/iu003eu003cbru003eu003cbru003e"Penetrating . . . reveal[s] details that even close followers of [Ali] might not have known. . . . An amazing story." --u003ciu003eThe New York Timesu003c/iu003eu003cbru003eu003cbru003eOn the night in 1964 that Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay) stepped into the ring with Sonny Liston, he was widely regarded as an irritating freak who danced and talked way too much. Six rounds later Ali was not only the new world heavyweight boxing champion: He was "a new kind of black man" who would shortly transform America's racial politics, its popular culture, and its notions of heroism.u003cbru003e No one has captured Ali--and the era that he exhilarated and sometimes infuriated--with greater vibrancy, drama, and astuteness than David Remnick, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of u003cbu003eLenin's Tombu003c/bu003e (and editor of u003cbu003eThe New Yorkeru003c/bu003e). In charting Ali's rise from the gyms of Louisville, Kentucky, to his epochal fights against Liston and Floyd Patterson, Remnick creates a canvas of unparalleled richness. He gives us empathetic portraits of wisecracking sportswriters and bone-breaking mobsters; of the baleful Liston and the haunted Patterson; of an audacious Norman Mailer and an enigmatic Malcolm X. Most of all, u003cbu003eKing of the Worldu003c/bu003e does justice to the speed, grace, courage, humor, and ebullience of one of the greatest athletes and irresistibly dynamic personalities of our time.u003cbru003eu003cbru003e"Nearly pulse-pounding narrative power . . . an important account of a period in American social history." --u003ciu003eChicago Tribuneu003c/iu003eu003cbru003eu003cbru003e"A pleasure . . . haunting . . . so vivid that one can imagine Ali saying, 'How'd you get inside my head, boy?'" --Wilfrid Sheed, u003ciu003eTimeu003c/iu003e
