Description
Book SynopsisThis absorbing book unravels the reasons for the enduring respect and reverence that Muhammad Ali commands long after the end of his athletic career. It will appeal to those teaching and studying cultural studies, social theory, sports studies, and sociology, as well as to general readers interested in Muhammad Ali.
Trade Review"A brilliant meditation on celebrity and spectatorship and an astute cultural analysis of race and sport, Charles Lemert's
Muhammad Ali is also an affectionate biography of one of the most significant figures of our age."
Barry Glassner, University of Southern California, author of The Culture of Fear "Ali's fame was launched on the tide of his astonishing athletic prowess, but it was borne along by the spurting cross-currents of culture, race and politics which boiled so fiercely during the 1960s and 1970s. Lemert is excellent on Ali in relation to these cross-currents, but he also dares to dive deeper, into the secret waters of myth, totem and taboo which still underlie more of human thought and feeling than we may like to admit … This is a remarkably interesting and re-readable essay." Financial Times
Table of Contents1. From the Beginnings : GG is Gonna Whip Everybody.
2. Celebrity, Tricks, and Culture: Float like a Butterfly, Sting like a Bee.
3. Trickster Queers the World: I Don’t Have to Be What You Want Me to Be.
4. The Irony of Global Cultures: No Viet Cong ever Called me Nigger.
5. Coming Home to the Heart of Darkness: When we were Kings.
6. Trickster Bodies and Cultural Death: You’ll Die One Day So Better Get Ready.
Ali and the World: A Chronology.
Notes.
Acknowledgments.
Index.
