Selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2011 in the Sports and Recreation category.
Choice - Choice Outstanding Academic Title
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Bama Escapes
Bama Escapes - Lance Hicks
CHOICE
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
St. Petersburg Times - Allen Barra
Baton Rouge Advocate
Baton Rouge Advocate - Andrew Burstein
Dallas Morning News
Dallas Morning News - Allen St. John
Philadelphia Inquirer
Philadelphia Inquirer - Glenn Altschuler
New York Post
Boston Globe - Bill Littlefield
Wall Street Journal
"Roberts''s book is a thoroughly researched beginner''s guide to boxing as well as an introductory course in 20th century politics that contains, at the heart of it, a stoic enigma of a fighter who wasn''t afraid to go toe-to-toe with the world."—Lance Hicks, Bama Escapes
— Lance Hicks
"Roberts has written a thoroughly researched, engaging book on African American heavyweight boxer Joe Louis. . . . This excellent book has much to say about race, nationalism, and identity."—A. Ejikeme, CHOICE
— A. Ejikeme
"Louis''s story ghad been told by sportwriters and historians many times, but Roberts is a fine match with his subject. He suppports with powerful evidence his contention that Louis''s impact was enormous and profound. His explorations of the shameful social conditions and smug hyporcrisy poisoning the landscape over which Louis loomed for a time are incisive and convincing."—Bill Littlefield, New York Post
— Bill Littlefield
"[An] exciting account of the great champ''s life. . . . [The book] isn''t so much a biography as a cultural history of its subject''s life and times. . . . It''s a thrilling account of an extraordinary life, one that needed to be retold to a generation to whom Joe Louis is no more than an occasional face on ESPN Classic. He was a giant in those days, and Randy Roberts has reclaimed him for us."—Allen Barra, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
— Allen Barra
"It''s a thrilling account of an extraordinary life, one that needed to be retold to a generation tow hom Joe Louis is no more than an occasional face on ESPN Classic. There was a giant in those days, and Roberts has reclaimed him for us."—Allen Barra, St. Petersburg Times
— Allen Barra
"A biography to be savored. . . . Roberts'' narrative of the pugilist and the man is gripping. . . . He captures the spirit of the age, when boxing on radio fed the national imagination. . . . Roberts recovers a great story and makes it sing for him."—Andrew Burstein, Baton Rouge Advocate
"[This] new biography by Randy Roberts restores Louis to his proper place in the pantheon, both as an athlete and as a cultural icon."—Allen St. John, Dallas Morning News
— Allen St. John
"Well-researched, intelligent, and insightful. . . . [Roberts is] able to capture the drama, brutality, and pathos of Louis''s epic battles."—Glenn Altschuler, Philadelphia Inquirer
— Glenn Altschuler
"Roberts is a fine match with his subject. He supports with powerful evidence his contention that Louis''s impact was enormous and profound."—Bill Littlefield, Boston Globe
— Bill Littlefield
When talk turns to who was the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time, four names usually come up: Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, and Muhammad Ali. Roberts (history, Purdue Univ.) has published biographies of Johnson and Dempsey and now focuses his attention on Louis. Soon after turning professional Joseph Louis Barrow, a product of rural Alabama poverty, became an icon for fellow African Americans. His 1938 defeat of Max Schmeling, Hitler's poster boy for Aryan supremacy, and his bounty of good works for "the cause" during World War II turned Louis into an idol. The fact that he was the antithesis of Jack Johnson in demeanor, soft spoken and seemingly free of festering racial wounds, helped, as did his boxing prowess, which resulted in 25 successful defenses of his title. VERDICT Well researched and well written, Roberts's study will appeal both to boxing fans and scholars of American social and cultural history. Like its subject, this book is a champion.—Jim Burns, Jacksonville P.L., FL
A sympathetic, moving life of the Brown Bomber by veteran cultural historian and biographer Roberts (History/Purdue Univ.; The Rock, the Curse, and the Hub: A Random History of Boston Sports , 2005, etc.).
As the author tells it, the story of Joseph Louis Barrow (1914–1981) is humbling, inspiring, depressing and deeply emotional. Born into a laboring family in rural Alabama, Louis, the seventh of eight children, showed no particular aptitude for much of anything. When his father's mental illness consumed him, Louis's mother remarried, and Joe eventually discovered the boxing world, where he began using Louis for a surname and discovered—after some shocks, disappointments and hard knocks—that he had the ability to be something special. And he was. As Roberts shows, America was a vilely racist society, both in the Jim Crow South and in the North. Louis, groomed by his handlers to be the laconic antithesis to the flamboyant Jack Johnson, still had the burden of an Atlas on his shoulders—the burden of the American black world, whose population grew to revere him and anoint him their avatar, their warrior who defeated, one after another, the representatives of oppressive white America. As war with Germany loomed, Louis came to represent America itself in his second fight (he'd lost the first) with the German Max Schmeling, who cavorted with Nazis and hung with Hitler. Roberts handles the boxing action with professional aplomb, and he knows when to cut away to tell us something of consequence and when to return to the ring. The author ably chronicles Louis's rise from Alabama cotton fields to the cavernous Yankee Stadium, where celebrities glittered in the ringside seats for his big fights; the development of the mass media (boxing was enormously popular on radio); Louis's career in the U.S. Army; and his sad decline, amid unpayable debts and mental illness.
All legendary athletes should hope for treatment by such capable, compassionate hands.
