A full-length biography of boxer Lew Jenkins has been long overdue, and here Gene Pantalone does a good job of connecting Jenkins’ hard-scrabble upbringing in rural Texas to the bright lights of Broadway to the grim realities of the battlefield. It’s an exceptional story of a fighter’s struggle, success, disgrace, and a sincere and hard-earned redemption.
This is a superb book that I highly recommend to all boxing fans. It is a great read.
From Boxing Ring to Battlefield is an engaging read. Katie Jenkins.. . comes across as a particularly interesting character.. .. I knew next to nothing about Lew Jenkins when I started reading From Boxing Ring to Battlefield. I feel as though I know him much better now.
Until the publication of Gene Pantalone’s biography, the annals of boxing have been missing a chapter—a chapter on Hall-of-Famer Lew Jenkins. Jenkins was a bony Texan who, as a world lightweight champion, mastered the stylized warfare of the ring as well as the real thing—WWII and the Korean War. A must-read for all students of the history of the sweet science, Pantalone’s richly-documented biography presents an arresting portrait of a boxer and soldier who was as wild as a pirate and as courageous as Achilles.
Author Gene Pantalone delves into the life of Lew Jenkins in his latest book, From Boxing Ring to Battlefield.. .. . [A] must-read for all boxing fans. Throughout the two-hundred pages, Gene Pantalone does a terrific job at engaging the reader and making him become invested in the development of Jenkins as if it was a life story being played out in real time. Pantalone also does a great job telling the stories of the people that played different roles in Jenkins life.. .. If not for Pantalone this is the type of story that may have been lost in the annals of time. Lew Jenkins may have been viewed as just another lightweight champion from years past. Instead readers are now able to connect with an intriguing character who finds purpose in the most unlikely of places during a period of time that is becoming more and more distant.
The life of Lew Jenkins is the stuff of boxing legend. From his Depression era upbringing and carnival barnstorming to winning a world title and squandering it all before becoming a war hero, Jenkins is an epic pulp novel come to life. In the capable hands of Gene Pantalone the story brims with all the hardscrabble detail you want in a great boxing book. This is a must-read for fans of the squared circle's history.
This is a must read for anyone who wants to learn about the great Lew Jenkins or the history of boxing.
Lew Jenkins was a fighter’s fighter. Pantalone, an independent boxing historian, charts Jenkins’s career inside and outside the ring in this fast-moving biography. In the ring, he was a devastating puncher, especially for a lightweight. A full 52 of his 74 victories came by the way of knockout. But he lost 42 contests, a significant sum for a top fighter. The text puts these numbers in context: during the 1930s, when boxers fought often and against quality opponents, win-loss records looked different from today. Jenkins held the lightweight title from May 1940 until just after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, an event that changed Jenkins’s life. Before the war, Jenkins battled alcohol and bad life choices as much as his ring opponents—he admitted himself that his "two toughest opponents were Jack Daniels and Harley Davidson”—but service in WW II (and later the Korean War) showed him at his best. He enlisted in the Coast Guard during WW II, was deployed overseas, and participated in a series of crucial landings in North Africa, Sicily, mainland Italy, and France. He was awarded the Silver Star in the Korean War. Although he returned to the ring after WW II, his skills were gone.
[Pantalone] poured his heart and soul into this book, and it shines through.. .. 5 out of 5 stars, absolutely fantastic.
Pantalone writes about Jenkins’ boxing career without judgment, laying it out for the reader to understand what was going on behind the scenes.... Pantalone fills his book with quotes from many who knew Jenkins, the result being a complete and layered look at the former champion’s life and redemption. Highly recommended.
Too often the history of boxing boils down to tales about heavyweights, as if the exploits of Sullivan, Johnson, Dempsey, Louis, Marciano, Ali, and Tyson are all that matter. Well, Lew Jenkins—lightweight champion, war hero, and a danger to himself as much as any opponent—mattered. His is the story of survival in the ring, in two wars, and in life. Gene Pantalone’s biography of Jenkins richly recounts a fascinating life.
.. .a highly satisfactory account of a fighter who deserves to be better known for a variety of reasons.
From Boxing Ring to Battlefield: The Life of War Hero Lew Jenkins is the sort of high-spirited account that only Jenkins could inspire [and] Pantalone is the biographer Jenkins deserves, telling the story simply but thoroughly. .. Jenkins’ sad smile is all over this book.
Gene Pantalone has done a remarkable job bringing lightweight champ and Hall of Famer Lew Jenkins to life in this most entertaining and informative biography. "The Sweetwater Swatter" was one helluva hard puncher... so's his biographer.
Pantalone is a first-rate researcher, enabling him to depict scenes that could not vary more wildly in content – from Jenkins’ early fights in backwater Texas venues to lethal battles in Korea’s Haean-Myon Valley near today’s Demilitarized Zone. He describes the emotion and technique of a 1940s New York City title match with the same skill as the even more challenging nuances of 1950s land-based warfare.
Lew Jenkins had a howitzer of a right hand and sometimes fought drunk. What more could you ask for?
Gene Pantalone has done a marvelous job in bringing Lew Jenkins’ life to the written page. It is a biography that reads like a fast-moving movie, with Pantalone’s vivid writing painting a multitude of colorful scenes inside your head. Pantalone instills the atmosphere of the time in From Boxing Ring to Battlefield. You can almost smell the sweat and the smoke of the gyms and hear the thump of the leather upon flesh. You can most certainly hear the clink of glasses and bottles as Lew drinks himself into a stupor between fights. From Boxing Ring to Battlefield is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the Golden Age of boxing that existed between 1920 and 1950. It is also a great read even for those who might not class themselves as a boxing fan but still enjoy a good story. The most impressive thing perhaps about Lew Jenkins’ life story is that it really did happen. What a tale it is indeed.
Lew Jenkins was a fighter’s fighter. Pantalone, an independent boxing historian, charts Jenkins’s career inside and outside the ring in this fast-moving biography. In the ring, he was a devastating puncher, especially for a lightweight. A full 52 of his 74 victories came by the way of knockout. But he lost 42 contests, a significant sum for a top fighter. The text puts these numbers in context: during the 1930s, when boxers fought often and against quality opponents, win-loss records looked different from today. Jenkins held the lightweight title from May 1940 until just after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, an event that changed Jenkins’s life. Before the war, Jenkins battled alcohol and bad life choices as much as his ring opponents—he admitted himself that his "two toughest opponents were Jack Daniels and Harley Davidson”—but service in WW II (and later the Korean War) showed him at his best. He enlisted in the Coast Guard during WW II, was deployed overseas, and participated in a series of crucial landings in North Africa, Sicily, mainland Italy, and France. He was awarded the Silver Star in the Korean War. Although he returned to the ring after WW II, his skills were gone.
Lew Jenkins was a fighter’s fighter. Pantalone, an independent boxing historian, charts Jenkins’s career inside and outside the ring in this fast-moving biography. In the ring, he was a devastating puncher, especially for a lightweight. A full 52 of his 74 victories came by the way of knockout. But he lost 42 contests, a significant sum for a top fighter. The text puts these numbers in context: during the 1930s, when boxers fought often and against quality opponents, win-loss records looked different from today. Jenkins held the lightweight title from May 1940 until just after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, an event that changed Jenkins’s life. Before the war, Jenkins battled alcohol and bad life choices as much as his ring opponents—he admitted himself that his "two toughest opponents were Jack Daniels and Harley Davidson”—but service in WW II (and later the Korean War) showed him at his best. He enlisted in the Coast Guard during WW II, was deployed overseas, and participated in a series of crucial landings in North Africa, Sicily, mainland Italy, and France. He was awarded the Silver Star in the Korean War. Although he returned to the ring after WW II, his skills were gone.
