The Cambridge Companion to Boxing

Gerald Early

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781108651004
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: North American Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

While humans have used their hands to engage in combat since the dawn of man, boxing originated in Ancient Greece as an Olympic event. It is one of the most popular, controversial and misunderstood sports in the world. For its advocates, it is a heroic expression of unfettered individualism. For its critics, it is a depraved and ruthless physical and commercial exploitation of mostly poor young men. This Companion offers engaging and informative essays about the social impact and historical importance of the sport of boxing. It includes a comprehensive chronology of the sport, listing all the important events and personalities. Essays examine topics such as women in boxing, boxing and the rise of television, boxing in Africa, boxing and literature, and boxing and Hollywood films. A unique book for scholars and fans alike, this Companion explores the sport from its inception in Ancient Greece to the death of its most celebrated figure, Muhammad Ali.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Table of contents
• Notes on Contributors
• Chronology
• Introduction: The Last Sport Standing
• 1 Boxing in the Ancient World
• 2 The Bare-Knuckle Era
• 3 Jem Mace and the Making of Modern Boxing
• 4 Race and Boxing in the Nineteenth Century
• 5 Joe Gans and His Contemporaries
• 6 Harry Greb, Gene Tunney, Jack Dempsey, and the Roaring Twenties
• 7 Prime (and Crime) Time: Boxing in the 1950s
• 8 The Africans: Boxing and Africa
• 9 A Century of Fighting Latinos: From the Margins to the Mainstream
• 10 Women’s Boxing: Bout Time
• 11 Jews in Twentieth-Century Boxing
• 12 A Surprising Dearth of Top English-born Jewish Fighters in the Bare-Knuckle Era
• 13 Joe Louis: “You Should Have Seen Him Then”
• 14 Sugar Ray Robinson’s Furious Beauty
• 15 Echoes from the Jungle: Muhammad Ali in the Early 1970s
• 16 The Unusable Champions: Sonny Liston (1962–1964) and Larry Holmes (1978–1985)
• 17 Emile Griffith: An Underrated Champion
• 18 Pierce Egan, Boxing, and British Nationalism
• 19 Jose Torres: The Boxer as Writer
• 20 “Well, What Was it Really Like?” George Plimpton, Norman Mailer, and the Heavyweights1
• 21 Jack London and the Great White Hopes of Boxing Literature
• 22 Body and Soul of the Screen Boxer
• 23 Black Slaver: Jack Johnson and the Mann Act
• 24 Yesternow: Jack Johnson, Documentary Film, and the Politics of Jazz
• 25 Opera in the Ring
• 26 The Voice of Boxing
• 27 Ralph Wiley’s Surprising Serenity
• 28 Muhammad Ali: King of the Inauthentic
• Index