Joe Louis
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Hard Times Man
Randy Roberts
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Format: PaperPrice: $32.00
The definitive biography of one of the twentieth century’s greatest sports figures
Joe Louis defended his heavyweight boxing title an astonishing twenty-five times and reigned as world champion for more than eleven years. He got more column inches of newspaper coverage in the 1930s than FDR did. His racially and politically charged defeat of Max Schmeling in 1938 made Louis a national hero. But as important as his record is what he meant to African-Americans: at a time when the boxing ring was the only venue where black and white could meet on equal terms, Louis embodied all their hopes for dignity and equality.
Through meticulous research and first-hand interviews, acclaimed historian and biographer Randy Roberts presents Louis, and his impact on sport and country, in a way never before accomplished. Roberts reveals an athlete who carefully managed his public image, and whose relationships with both the black and white communities—including his relationships with mobsters—were far more complex than the simplistic accounts of heroism and victimization that have dominated previous biographies.
Richly researched and utterly captivating, this extraordinary biography presents the full range of Joe Louis’s power in and out of the boxing ring.
"Roberts takes you ringside as one of the greatest practitioners of 'the Sweet Science' makes history, but he doesn't stop there. He explains the race relations and international politics of the 1930's that, along with his hard punches and no-nonsense style, made Joe Louis immortal."—Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)
"Boxing has the greatest literary tradition of any sport. Joe Louis: Hard Times Man is the latest in a line of wonderful books by Randy Roberts that break new ground and contribute admirably to this tradition."—Thomas Hauser, author of Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times
“Roberts reconstructs Joe Louis’s life in an engrossing, insightful narrative. The prose is energetic, at times rising to the lyrical.”—Bruce Schulman, Boston University
“A sympathetic, moving life of the Brown Bomber by veteran cultural historian and biographer Roberts. . . . All legendary athletes should hope for treatment by such capable, compassionate hands.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Well researched and well written, Roberts’s study will appeal both to boxing fans and scholars of American social and cultural history. Like its subject, this book is a champion.”— Library Journal, starred review
“…readable and thought-provoking.”—John Exshaw, Boxing Monthly
Publication Date: February 14, 2012
16 b/w illus.
