Muhammad Ali: A Tribute to the Greatest

Stripping away the revisionism to reveal the true nature of the man himself, this new book recounts the life journey of a fighter universally recognized as a unique and treasured world icon. 

Few global personalities have commanded an all-encompassing sporting and cultural audience like Muhammad Ali. Many have tried to interpret his impact and legacy into words. Now, Muhammad Ali: A Tribute to the Greatest allows us to more fully appreciate the truth—and understand both the man and the ways in which he helped recalibrate how the world perceives its transcendent figures.

In this celebratory volume, New York Times bestselling author Thomas Hauser provides a compelling retrospective of Ali’s life. relying on personal insights, interviews with close associates and other contemporaries, and memories gathered over the course of decades on the cutting edge of boxing journalism, Hauser explores Ali in colorful detail inside and outside the ring.

Muhammad Ali has attained mythical status. But in recent years, he has been subjected to an image makeover by corporate America as it seeks to homogenize the electrifying nature of his persona. Hauser argues that there has been a deliberate distortion of what Ali believed, said, and stood for, and that making Ali more presentable for advertising purposes by sanitizing his legacy is a disservice to history as well as to Ali himself.

Pulitzer Prize nominee Thomas Hauser is the author of fifty books, on subjects ranging from professional boxing to Beethoven. He is widely recognized as the world’s pre-eminent writer on “the sweet science” and, in particular, Muhammad Ali. Hauser has won the prestigious Prix Lafayette, the Nat Fleischer Award for Career Excellence in Boxing Journalism, and the Haviva Reik Award. He lives in New York City.