New Book Alert: Thomas Hauser's MUHAMMAD ALI: A TRIBUTE TO THE GREATEST

From Thomas Hauser, one of the world’s foremost authorities on Muhammad Ali and boxing, comes a stirring account of the life and legend of a great man: Muhammad Ali: A Tribute to the Greatest.

This compelling retrospective draws from personal insights, interviews with close associates and other contemporaries, and memories gathered over the course of decades spent on the cutting edge of boxing journalism. The resulting volume is a vivid and colorful portrait of Ali’s life, inside and outside the ring.

Stripping away the revisionism to reveal the true nature of the man himself, Muhammad Ali: A Tribute to the Greatest contains virtually all of Hauser’s writing about Ali from 1992 to date, including the previously unpublished essay, “The Long, Sad Goodbye.”

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In the early stages of his career, Cassius Clay was more highly regarded for his charm and personality than for his skills in the ring. He told the world he was “The Greatest,” but the brutal realities of boxing seemed to dictate otherwise. Then, on February 25, 1964, in one of the most stunning upsets in sports history, Clay knocked out Sonny Liston to claim the heavyweight championship of the world. Two days later, he shocked the world again by announcing that he had accepted the teachings of the Nation of Islam. On March 6, 1964, he took the name “Muhammad Ali.”

For the next three years, Ali dominated boxing as thoroughly and magnificently as any fighter ever had. But outside the ring, his persona was being sculpted in ways that were even more important. As the 1960s grew more tumultuous, Ali became a lightning rod for dissent in America. His message of black pride and black resistance to white domination was on the cutting edge of the era. In 1967, citing his religious beliefs, he refused induction into the U.S. Army at the height of the war in Vietnam. He was convicted of dodging the draft and sentenced to five years in prison. In 1971, his conviction was unanimously overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, but he’d been forced out of the ring and precluded from fighting for almost four years. He was said to have thought he’d never fight again.

The subsequent decades have confirmed Ali’s enduring legacy as a unique and treasured world icon. Like all of us, he was flawed. But what will remain forever is a legacy of monumental proportions and a reminder of what people can be. Ali entered the public arena as an athlete, but went on to break the mold of what we understand sports figures to be. Few global personalities have commanded an all-encompassing sporting and cultural audience like Muhammad Ali. Ali carved out a place in history that was, and will always be, distinctively his own.

Muhammad Ali: A Tribute to the Greatest includes:
• An examination of how Ali dominated and changed the sport of boxing, highlighted by his epic fights against Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, and George Foreman, and a comprehensive listing of his 61-fight professional ring record.
• Reflections on Ali’s role in shaping the social and political climate of the 1960s, when he was at the vortex of the civil rights movement and refused induction into the United States Army at the height of the war in Vietnam.
• Personal recollections and anecdotes highlighting the human side of the man, including a recounting of Ali’s historic visit to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
• Thoughts on the sanitization of Ali’s legacy, as he was subjected to an image makeover by those who sought to rewrite history and file the rough edges away from his electrifying persona to make Ali more presentable for advertising purposes and other economic ends; a disservice to history as well as to Ali himself.
• The recounting of Ali’s long, sad physical decline, including interviews with family members, fellow boxers, and friends.
• Thoughts on Ali from world leaders, sports heroes, and other icons of our time, including Malcolm X, David Halberstam, Joe Louis, Reggie Jackson, and many more.
 
About the Author
Pulitzer Prize nominee Thomas Hauser is the author of 48 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.

PRAISE FOR THOMAS HAUSER’S WRITING ON MUHAMMAD ALI:

“The first definitive biography of a boxer who transcended sports as no other athlete ever has.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“Hauser creates a new foundation for all future Ali scholarship.”
—Los Angeles Times

“A magnificent book about a life that needs to be understood
whether you care a whit about boxing or not.”
—Boston Globe

“A considerable achievement and probably as thorough a look as we’ll get at this remarkable man.”
—Wall Street Journal

“Thomas Hauser’s achievement in chronicling the life of Muhammad Ali is monumental.”
—The Guardian

“Of all the thinkers who have accepted the challenge of explaining Muhammad Ali
as a man, fighter, and inspiration, Thomas Hauser has seen him most clearly.”
—The Sporting News

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MUHAMMAD ALI: A TRIBUTE TO THE GREATEST
By Thomas Hauser
Pegasus Books
**On Sale This Week**

$27.95 • Hardcover • 978-1-68177-169-4 • 288 pages • 6 x 9 • Sports / Biography

For press inquiries or to request a copy, please contact Iris Blasi at iris@pegasusbooks.com // 646-343-9503.

Pegasus Books, an independent publisher of a diverse catalog of works including history, philosophy, biography and memoir, literary fiction, and noir titles.

Pegasus Books
148 West 37th Street, 13th Floor
New York, NY 10018

Press contact: Marketing Director & Senior Editor Iris Blasi, iris@pegasusbooks.com // 646.343.9503

This release was published on openPR.