Beyond the Ring: The Role of Boxing in American Society (Sport and Society) - Softcover

Sammons, Jeffrey T.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0252061454 ISBN 13: 9780252061455

Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 1990

Synopsis

Documents the ruin waiting for almost all those ill-advised enough to become professional boxers. The author confirms the legends, of crime, of swindling, of the miserable economic rewards allotted to the vast majority of fighters, and the traditional racism of the American ring.

About this title

About the Author:

Jeffrey T. Sammons is professor in the Department of History at New York University and the author of Beyond the Ring: The Role of Boxing in American Society. John H. Morrow, Jr., Franklin Professor of History at the University of Georgia, is the author of several books, including The Great War: An Imperial History.

From Library Journal:

Sammons, a history and Afro-American studies scholar, presents a social history of boxing in America. He weaves the contributions of John L. Sullivan, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Jack Johnson, etc.mostly heavyweightsinto an account of a sport blighted by brutality, racial prejudice, corruption, and criminal exploitation. Though the author's overemphasis on black Civil Rights gives short shrift to the struggles of other ethnic strains to rise through boxing, this is a well-presented, appealing narrative that merits comparison with Joyce Carol Oates's less detailed On Boxing ( LJ 1/87). For college and large public libraries.Morey Berger, Monmouth Cty. Lib., Manalapan, N.J.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0252061454
• ISBN 13: 9780252061455
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 376