Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties - Hardcover

Marqusee, Mike

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 185984717X ISBN 13: 9781859847176

Publisher: Verso, 1999

Synopsis

Shortlisted for the 1999 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award and voted one of the twenty-five “Books to Remember 2000” by the New York Public Library.

In this timely antidote to the apolitical celebration of Muhammad Ali as ‘a great American’, Mike Marqusee puts the boxer back in his true historical context to explore a crucial moment at the crossroads of popular culture and mass resistance. And, in a new afterword for this second edition, he reflects on Ali’s legacy in the era of the ‘war on terror’.

About this title

About the Author

Mike Marqusee‘s books include Wicked Messenger: Bob Dylan and the 1960s, Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties, War Minus the Shooting, Anyone but England and If I Am Not for Myself. He is a regular contributor to the Guardian and writes a fortnightly column for the Indian newspaper The Hindu. He lives in London.

Reviews

While David Remnick's King of the World focused on the character of Muhammad Ali, using historical context to buttress his portrait of the man, Marqusee has written a vibrant historical essay that reexamines Ali's role as a symbol of dissent and uses the man as a portal to an understanding of his era. In February 1964, the day after he shocked boxing experts by dethroning the much-feared Sonny Liston as heavyweight champion of the world, Cassius Clay had breakfast with Malcolm X and announced that he had joined the Nation of Islam. "I know where I'm going and I know the truth," he said, "and I don't have to be what you want me to be." From that moment, the young man who would soon become Muhammad Ali, who had a natural aversion to politics and a supremely independent spirit, was thrust into the center of events in an era of dramatic social change. Marqusee, who emigrated from America to Britain in 1971, argues that the true political context of Ali's actions and their international implications have been diluted in recent years as the defiant ethos of the 1960s has faded and as Ali has been appropriated as a corporate and even patriotic icon. Drawing upon the music of the dayADylan, Hendrix, Sam CookeAand ranging from Paul Robeson to Patrice Lumumba, Marqusee engagingly explains how Ali's penchant for turning events upside down often made him a symbol of heroism abroad and of disrespect for the status quo at home. As Marqusee charts how Ali helped create a global consciousness, he succeeds in knocking Ali off the respectable pedestal on which American culture has placed him, resurrecting him as the radical figure he truly was. (Aug.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Verso
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 185984717X
• ISBN 13: 9781859847176
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 310