Rating: 
Summary: Knockout
Review: David Remnick delivers a terrific biography of Muhammad Ali with "King of the World," but this book should never be mistaken for a conventional sports biography. It is also social history and a compassionate yet realistic portrait of America's guiltiest pleasure: the seamy, yet somehow sometimes heroic world of professional boxing.The first thing that struck me when I read the book is that its first section discusses Muhammad Ali (or Cassius Clay) very little. Instead, Remnick focuses on the two boxers who helped to gave shape to Ali's legend: Floyd Patterson and Sonny Liston. The former was a reluctant champion from the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, and Remnick brings Patterson's reticence and self-doubt into full view. The latter was a street thug from an impoverished rural background, a vision of America's deepest fears about African-Americans. Remnick details Liston's two devastating first-round demolitions of Patterson and illuminates the complicated relationship the public had with Liston. On the one hand, he was despised because of his criminal background and ties to the mob; on the other, Remnick makes clear, he was comforing because he confirmed stereotyped perceptions of black men. One of Remnick's great accompishments in the book is to humanize Liston without in the least diminishing his surly and even hateful demeanor. With Liston the controversial heavyweight champ, the loud, abrasive, seemingly self-confident Cassius Clay, of Louisville, Kentucky, stepped into the national spotlight. Remnick displays the future champion in all his complex glory: his braggadocio, his complex relationship with white people, including his trainer and doctor, his innate intelligence that was paired with his lack of formal schooling, his ability to manipulate the press, and so on. Interwoven into his story of how Cassius Clay literally created his life and legend and became the man we know as Muhammad Ali is excellent social history on the civil rights movement and Ali's relationship with the Muslims, including Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X. It is not surprising for those of us who grew up in the '60s that sport was so mixed up with politics in Muhammad Ali's day and that he was a key figure in shaping politics. Those who do not remember the time, however, may find it enlightening to realize that there was once an athlete who paid dearly for his political beliefs: Muhammad Ali was stripped of his heavyweight title and banned from the ring for four years for his opposition to the war in Vietnam. Remnick brings all of this vividly to life. He manages, in a bare 300 pages, to meld sports, politics, and history into a story that unfolds like a great heavyweight fight. Must read.
Rating: 
Summary: WONDERFULLY WRITTEN
Review: As a 37 year old fan of Muhammad Ali, I grew up on his fights. He has always been a man I've loved and admired. This book is very interesting since it deals with Ali's beginnings and detailed events in his life on the rise. It's an interesting story and I couldnt put this book down. I wish for a part two "The Peak". I wanted to continue to read and read about this interesting man. I've been recommending this book to everyone.
Rating:
Summary: Sorry Clutchmotor.........you've missed the point
Review: The title of the book is King of the World : Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero. This piece of work, of course, traces the RISE of Ali. You finally worked it out, Clutchmotor. "After taking another look at the book's title I should have figured that it's about Ali's rise to prominence and not his career." Very perceptive. This book is a fine take on the evolution of one of the true icons of sporting history.
Rating:
Summary: A good book about a short period of time in the life of The
Review: I liked this book and would recommend it to friends. If you want to read just one, genuinely great piece of writing about the REAL Ali, however, rather than biographies such as this and Muhammad Ali: His Life And Times by Thomas Hauser, I recommend "The Tao Of Muhammad Ali" by Davis Miller. There are passages in Davis Miller's book that will make you cry, others that will make you laugh and some that will have you itching to know what happens next.
Rating: 
Summary: Read Thomas Hauser's book - don't bother with this one.
Review: I've come to be a fan of Ali later in life, way after his career was over. I never saw him fight in his prime. How I became acquainted with him was through Thomas Hauser's biography. Which spans Ali's life from birth to the present. He tells Ali's story through anecdotes of the people who surrounded him throughout his life and those who just knew him through certain events. Hauser's book is so complete and tells the story from so many different angles that the author of this book, David Remnick, cited Hauser many times in his own book. This book goes through a hundred or so pages before you even get to Ali's career and stops after the Patterson fight (basically right before the Foreman and Frazier fights). Ali's life from the Patterson fight forward is glossed over quickly in the epilogue. To his credit, Remnick relates his moments spent with the champ poignantly, but these moments were few and far between. After taking another look at the book's title I should have figured that it's about Ali's rise to prominence and not his career.
Rating:
Summary: A True Legend !
Review: This is the story of how the greatest boxer of all time shook up boxing , and America , when he first arrived on the scene . It traces the story from his childhood , up until he was sentenced to five years in prison for refusing the draft for the Vietnam war ( " Man , I ain't got no quarrel with them Vietcong " ) , that ultimately would cost him three and a half years of his peak as a boxer .
The story really revolves around three fighters , - Floyd Patterson , Sonny Liston , and Ali himself , and the fights that they had amongst each other that would see Ali rise to the top and usher in a new era ( political , as well as sporting ) . The first fight between Liston and Patterson happened at a time when Afro-Americans were demonstrating for racial equality and there was tension in the air , but to white America and it's sports writers , there was nothing more comforting than two stereotypical safe negroes ( " uncle tom verses the mafia controlled black brute " ) knocking hell out of each other . All that changed when the " Louisville lip " arrived . Hell ! heavyweight boxers were not supposed to fight like lightweights , they were supposed to take their punches like a man , and as for all of his verbal " who does he think he is ? " . And for white America , and a few conservative blacks , it got worse . He started hanging out with Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam , and then horror of horrors , he changed his good old fashioned christian slave name to a muslim one .......... The three boxers in their different ways represented the political and cultural struggle that was happening in America at that time , and the author's psychological profile of each boxer adds a personal pathos to the bigger picture . Ali's sense of humour and bravery ( not just in the ring ) is everywhere in this book , but , it is the nobility and humanity of the man that shines through . A must read !
Rating:
Summary: The Greatest
Review: David Remnick's King of the World conveys the complexity of the man Muhammad Ali, both outspoken and tender, as it traces his early years as a young aspiring boxer and the events surrounding his first heavyweight championship. The book provides an inside look at the boxing establishment in the 1950s and 1960s and how it exploited and used young African American boxers, among them Liston and Patterson. Ali is unique among the boxers of that era, sustained by a strong sense of self and purpose. I was particularly intrigued by the description of Ali's religious journey and by the inner peace that characterizes him today. This book portrays a slice of American life, exposing the beauty of one human being, the drama of his life, and the racism that could have destroyed him but did not. Read this book and enjoy it!
Rating:
Summary: A terriffic look at a young Ali
Review: This is book is focused in Ali and his life between 1960-1965. It a good read about his positions, his conversion to the Nation of Islam, Black Pride and an inside look at each of his fights against Sonny Liston. It is an inteteresting read for those who lived through the 60's.
Rating:
Summary: THE GREATEST!
Review: Muhammad ALI is Still The MAN.No Athelete Since has Struck A Cord as Powerful as THis MAN.THis Book Highlights His UPS&DOWNS.It says SOmething For A Person To Sacrifice their Freedom for what they Believe in is Wrong.&ALI always Stood Out.He was His Own Creation.A Fighter in&Out The Ring.A True Warrior.he has touched folks all over The World.HE IS HISTORY RIGHT BEFORE OUR EYES.DAVID REMNICK Does A GREAT JOB HERE.ALI WILL ALWAYS BE THE MAN.
Rating:
Summary: The Real Ali
Review: This was a very well reported book, and an excellent snapshot of a changing time, in sports, and in race relations in the US. For better or worse, however, the real Ali comes through strongly in the book. While Remnick, and everyone who talks to the author extensively in the book, praises Ali as a great, sweet and brave man, he comes through to me the same as he always did: while undoubtedly a great boxer, he overstayed his welcome in the ring, and more often than not, his boorish behavior seems very off-putting. I'm happy that Ali was around in his time, to move the countries attitudes, but he certainly seems a bit more of a lout than anyone was willing to admit, in the way he treated his friends, women, and opponents. Nevertheless, the subject should not get in the way of the book itself
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