Customer Reviews:
An Excellent Cultural Study.......2007-01-15
American audiences exposed to the EPL, La Liga or any other league for that matter, often times only get to see 2 dimensions of the game. First, the emphasis on the bigger team names, and second, the game itself. What they often fail to see is the intracacy of the game behind the game - that is, the cultural elements that make soccer overseas so unique, so passionate, and often times, so beyond the grasp of comprehension to the audience that is watching on Fox Soccer Channel.
In Morbo, Phil Ball does a wonderful job of illustrating the cultural background to spanish soccer. And true to form, he effectively illustrates that La Liga is not only about Barcelona and Real Madrid. There is much history between these two clubs but fortunately, Ball doesn't spend all his effort on them. Instead he dives into the history of spanish soccer, starting with English miners, to the history of clubs that no one has heard of outside of Spain, like Recreativo de Huelva.
This is far more a cultural study, than it is a history of spanish soccer. Balls successfully discusses how the two paths combine, and how club support was defined more by class/politics/ and culture, than by a jersey's color. It certainly goes a long way in helping outsiders understand the level of support and the long ties people have to clubs. It is especially interesting in light of how the modern world is shaping the game.
Finally, like many sports leagues, there is history and their is myth. Ball does a service to the spanish game by not buying into the myth of some of the rivalries (Betis-Sevilla, RM-Barcelona, Athletic-everyone else). In doing so, he provides a complete and true picture of how the game has evolved on the Iberian peninsula.
For people interested in understanding how events actually shaped the game in Spain, this is a must read. There are plenty of books out there about Real Madrid and Barcelona, but there are few books that look at Spanish soccer with this depth and refreshing candor.
History of Spain.......2006-01-16
This is a remarkable book. Whereas it took Jimmy Burns of the Financial Times a whole book to wax about Barcelona, Phil Ball does it beautifully in a few pages. Morbo is a superb exploration of Spanish politics, Spanish geography, and the one thing that unites all of Spain-football. Spain is, it seems, a poor advertisement for the sort of national unity that dominated 19th. century Europe-Germany, Scotland, and Italy and later, India and China. Phil Ball's book exhibits a child-like happiness when he visits soccer stadiums in the forgotten corners of Spain. He exposes the hypocrisy of Basque politics, the long shadow of Francisco Franco in Spain and, finally, the exuberance of that Catalan city: Barcelona. This is a must-read for people who are interested not only in the cuisine of a particular peoples-Basque and Catalan- but in their vibrant history beyond the kitchen, beyond the football pitch as well.
Spanish culture revealed through sport.......2004-02-07
Morbo is fantastic. Phil Ball, as he always seems to do in his regular columns on Spanish football, manages to capture the essence of Spanish society through the culture of the game. This is a story not only of the greats - di Stefano, Barcelona, Real Madrid, etc - but of the cab driving Betis supporter of Seville and the forgotten cities and clubs of Huelva and Irun. For the American reader possessing a passion for the game with sources unknown, this opens up a culture for further exploration. It is not a complete history, nor was that ever its intent. Rather, as the title suggests, it is an eploration of morbo - the passion and rivalry of the game set against a backdrop of franco, poverty, wealth, isolation, regional pride, and most other issues that form the very foundation of Spain during the past century-plus.
Morbo is a brilliant place to start for the un-initiated and a delightful treat for those who already know the culture of the game.
Book Description
Towards the end of the sixteenth century, King Philip, ruler of the conjoint global empires of Spain and Portugal, received advice from many quarters, not least with regard to the attacks on the empires by other west European nations. Manoel de Andrada Castel Blanco, an obscure cleric who had worked in Brazil and Africa and who lamented the marine disasters and enemy incursions of the previous half-century, wrote c.1590 a tract of advice which has remained unpublished until the present annotated edition. His proposals for the defense of the imperial sea routes, which include references to localities as far apart as Bahia, Aden, Siam and Magellan Strait, make him one of the earliest global strategists. The tract, despite its patent defects of thought and presentation, gives the reader something of the "feel" of the period as it was experienced by those Iberians who, although outside the imperial administration, were capable of grasping the intense excitement of novel global venture and the inevitable accompanying anxieties and alarms.
Book Description
Francisco Gómez de Sandoval, Duke of Lerma (1553-1625) is the last major unknown statesman in modern European history. Patrick Williams brings him dramatically to life and challenges the assumptions that historians have made about him and about Spanish history at a time of profound crisis, inviting a re-evaluation of the phenomenon of government by favorites in this seminal period of European history.
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Spain's Struggle For Europe, 1598-1668
R.A. Stradling
Manufacturer: Hambledon & London
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ASIN: 1852850892 |
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This collection of essays contains an impressive body of the author's work on the history of Spain in the seventeenth century, which has focused particularly on the issues of high politics, international strategy and military infrastructure. The essays consistently illustrate his revisionist emphasis on aspects of the Spanish monarchy's 'survival', as opposed to orthodox treatments fixated upon 'decline'. The major questions about Spain in the period are all addressed: the quality of leadership, in particular that of Olivares and his master, Philip IV; the effect of war and the strains imposed by the demands of military provision; and the perception and reality of the 'decline'. Stimulating and immediate in style, the great majority of the essays are the result of sustained research work in the archives of Spain and other western European countries, as well as concentrated consideration of the broader contexts. They are all concerned to highlight interpretation and relevance in a way that enlivens the specific issues under review.
Customer Reviews:
terrific historical account .......2007-02-11
King Philip II of Spain was also the King of England when his wife devout Catholic Mary sat on the throne. Like his spouse he loathed the Reformation and tired to end its pervasive insurrection while also building a powerful empire. When Mary Tudor dies, which means her widow is no longer an English monarch, her half sister Protestant supporter Elizabeth I becomes ruler of England. Philip proposes marriage, but she rejects his offer. Instead she challenges his Catholic ways with her Protestant ways leading her nation into being a rival maritime superpower until by 1588 he sends his powerful armada to conquer England.
This is a terrific historical account of how personal alliances were amongst the sixteenth century European monarchies. In some ways the tome feels like a romance novel as the widower pursues his former sister-in-law who rejects his advances. However, their dysfunctional relationship represents the war between Catholic and Protestant domination of Europe and the New World. Well written and fun to read, Elizabethan aficionados (sorry Philip but history is written by the winner) will appreciate this insightful look at the latter half of the sixteenth century when national conflict was personalized.
Harriet Klausner
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- Essential! One of my most prized possessions.
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The Oxford Companion to Spanish Literature
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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A New History of Spanish Literature
ASIN: 0198661142 |
Customer Reviews:
Essential! One of my most prized possessions........2004-10-09
I turn to this book nearly every day for a quick refresher on the dates, publications, thematic interests,etc. of major Spanish and Spanish American writers. The Companion has long nourished my pasion for the great body of literature available in Spanish. The articles are succinct and informative and the breadth of coverage is remarkable. I very much hope a new edition comes out at some point, as I have been using this edition since high school.
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- Pérez Reverte lo ha hecho otra vez.
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El Caballero Del Jubon Amarillo
Arturo Perez-Reverte
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El oro del rey (Perez-Reverte, Arturo. Aventuras Del Capitan Alatriste, 4.)
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El Capitan Alatriste (Las Aventuras Del Capitan Alatriste)
ASIN: 8466315896
Release Date: 2005-04-30 |
Product Description
This long awaited fifth installment of the famous adventures of Capitan Alatriste is set in an aristocratic love affair between Alatriste and María de Castro, the most beautiful and famous actress of the Golden Era who is also being courted by Felipe IV. Action, history and adventure come together in these unforgettable pages of danger and excitement. Description in Spanish: Don Francisco de Quevedo me dirigió una mirada que interpreté como era debido, pues fui detrás del capitán Alatriste. Avísame si hay problemas, habían dicho sus ojos tras los lentes quevedescos. Dos aceros hacen más papel que uno. Y así, consciente de mi responsabilidad, acomodé la daga de misericordia que llevaba atravesada al cinto y fui en pos de mi amo, discreto como un ratón, confiando en que esta vez pudiéramos terminar la comedia sin estocadas y en paz, pues habría sido bellaca afrenta estropearle el estreno a Tirso de Molina. Yo estaba lejos de imaginar hasta qué punto la bellísima actriz María de Castro iba a complicar mi vida y la del capitán, poniéndonos a ambos en gravísimo peligro
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Customer Reviews:
Pérez Reverte lo ha hecho otra vez........2004-08-09
Lo que en el lejano 1997 comenzó siendo un entretenimiento, un osado intento de que los niños y adolescentes españoles se aficionaran a la lectura y conocieran un poco de esa Historia que había desaparecido de los libros de texto, se ha convertido, al cabo del tiempo, en la mejor serie de novela histórica en castellano desde Los Episodios Nacionales de Galdos y, en el plano internacional, el mas vivido y épico retrato de una época desde la trilogía de los mosqueteros de Alexandre Dumas.
Igual que, después de Dumas, ya no fuimos capaces de ver al cardenal Richelieu sino como al maquiavélico villano en la sombra, tras Pérez Reverte al gran Quevedo no lo podremos imaginar sin la espada desenvainada y el "no queda sino batirse". Y en eso consiste el genio de la novela histórica: en ser veraz, ser puntilloso en descripciones y lenguaje y además dar vida a esos datos fríos que llenan las biografías en las enciclopedias. Y dar vida a los personajes históricos no consiste en coger un faraón, un emperador romano o lo que sea y ponerlo a descifrar enigmas policíacos. Consiste en tomar personajes reales, con sus virtudes y defectos, y hacerlos actuar según las propias reglas de su tiempo y su carácter.
El gran Arturo, tras mostrarnos en las otras novelas de la saga las mazmorras de la inquisición, las trincheras de Flandes y el puerto de Sevilla, nos lleva esta vez al Teatro. Teatro con mayúsculas porque nunca antes y desde luego nunca después, conocería la Historia tal concentración de genios dedicados a escribir para un publico que convertía cada estreno en un acontecimiento social.
Y ahí estaba el Capitán Alatriste, codeándose con los poetas, encamándose con las actrices y como no, salvando el pescuezo al mismísimo Rey de las Españas. Vuelven el cruel villano Malatesta y Angelica de Alquezar, ese bollicao mezcla de Lolita y femme fatale. Y como no, allí esta también Iñigo de Balboa para contarnos como ocurrió todo.
Finalmente, y como es habitual en Perez Reverte no faltan los "cameos" de algunos personajes actuales que el lector español (no así los ajenos a la realidad española ) no tardara en reconocer. En cuanto al titulo, aquellos que no sigan la trayectoria de A P-R posiblemente no adviertan el guiño sentimental que esconde. "El caballero del jubón amarillo" es, según dice P-R en el prologo de su primera novela "El husar", el titulo de un folletín que el propio padre de Arturo Perez Reverte escribió hace tiempo, cuando el folletin era ya un genero muerto y muchos creían que enterrado. Posiblemente el padre de A P-R nunca imagino que su propio hijo desenterraría el genero y lo elevaría a cumbres no antes holladas.
En resumen: Un nuevo acierto del mejor escritor español vivo.
Book Description
We have been curious about numbers--and prime numbers--since antiquity. One notable new direction this century in the study of primes has been the influx of ideas from probability. The goal of this book is to provide insights into the prime numbers and to describe how a sequence so tautly determined can incorporate such a striking amount of randomness.
There are two ways in which the book is exceptional. First, some familiar topics are covered with refreshing insight and/or from new points of view. Second, interesting recent developments and ideas are presented that shed new light on the prime numbers and their distribution among the rest of the integers.
The book begins with a chapter covering some classic topics, such as quadratic residues and the Sieve of Eratosthenes. Also discussed are other sieves, primes in cryptography, twin primes, and more.
Two separate chapters address the asymptotic distribution of prime numbers. In the first of these, the familiar link between $\zeta(s)$ and the distribution of primes is covered with remarkable efficiency and intuition. The later chapter presents a walk through an elementary proof of the Prime Number Theorem. To help the novice understand the "why" of the proof, connections are made along the way with more familiar results such as Stirling's formula.
A most distinctive chapter covers the stochastic properties of prime numbers. The authors present a wonderfully clever interpretation of primes in arithmetic progressions as a phenomenon in probability. They also describe Cramér's model, which provides a probabilistic intuition for formulating conjectures that have a habit of being true. In this context, they address interesting questions about equipartition modulo $1$ for sequences involving prime numbers. The final section of the chapter compares geometric visualizations of random sequences with the visualizations for similar sequences derived from the primes. The resulting pictures are striking and illuminating. The book concludes with a chapter on the outstanding big conjectures about prime numbers.
This book is suitable for anyone who has had a little number theory and some advanced calculus involving estimates. Its engaging style and invigorating point of view will make refreshing reading for advanced undergraduates through research mathematicians. This book is the English translation of the French edition.
Customer Reviews:
discursive look at modern prime number theory.......2004-07-01
This book gives a survey of some of the top results, methods, and conjectures about the distribution of prime numbers. For many results it gives complete (but very concise) proofs.
Highlights are: a sketch of Dirichlet's original proof of his theorem on the infinitude of primes in arithmetic progressions; a new (1984) elementary proof of the Prime Number Theorem due to Henri Daboussi; a brief introduction to Cramer's ideas about using probability theory to conjecture results about the distribution of primes; and a survey of current unsolved problems. Daboussi's proof is especially interesting because it introduces a number of ideas that are used over and over again in more advanced work, in particular the study of numbers free of large, or small, prime factors.
The book can be read either as a survey of what is currently known, or in more detail for a good understanding of modern methods.
Book Description
The reign of Philip III of Spain (1598SH1621) has been viewed traditionally as the age when Spain's world power started to wane. This book reappraises this interpretation and demonstrates that this period represented a realignment of Spanish power in world affairs. It also analyzes the career of the Duke of Lerma, Philip III's chief minister, the first of a series of European royal favorites (such as the Duke of Buckingham, Cardinal Richelieu, and the Count-Duke of Olivares) who influenced politics, court culture and the arts during the seventeenth century.
Book Description
Nothing in the annals of sports has aroused more passion than the heavyweight fights in New York in 1936 and 1938 between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling–bouts that symbolized and galvanized the hopes, hatreds, and fears of a world moving toward total war.
David Margolick takes us into the careers of both men. We see Louis in his boyhood and amateur days in Detroit and Chicago, and the blossoming of his boxing genius. We see him, already a near-mythical figure, taking New York by storm in the 1930s, fighting before record crowds, the savior of a sport that had fallen into decline and a long sought after symbol of redemption for black America after the scandalous reign of Jack Johnson two decades earlier. And we witness how with talent, a gentle personality, and shrewd management, Louis managed to trump the brutal racism directed at him and came to dominate what had been primarily a white man’s sport, becoming a hero of unprecedented power and influence in black America.
Schmeling, we learn, was a kind of chameleon, a cultural icon in Weimar Germany who seamlessly, disconcertingly, maintained his privileged status after the Nazi takeover. He pulled off a remarkable feat, relying on a Jewish manager and a Jewish promoter in New York while being extolled at home as a model of “racial superiority.” Margolick meticulously examines all the complex ties that developed between Schmeling and the Nazis, shattering the myth that they frowned upon him before he upset Louis in 1936–he was a ten-to-one underdog–and ostracized him after losing to Louis two years later.
We see the extraordinary buildup to the 1938 rematch–the worsening international tensions seemingly raising the stakes–in which Louis would need only 124 seconds to defeat Schmeling, while radio allowed the whole world to listen. Margolick vividly captures the outpouring of emotion that the two fighters aroused–in the white South, in the black and Jewish communities in the United States, in Germany, everywhere–and he makes clear the cultural and social divisions the two men came to represent as the threat posed by the Nazis became increasingly clear, and as America began to feel the effects of a nascent civil rights movement. Schmeling’s postwar success in business and Louis’s sad decline add a poignant coda.
A book at once about sports and about a pivotal moment in twentieth-century history, Beyond Glory pulses with energy from first to last.
Customer Reviews:
Two Men And The History They Share.......2007-01-29
I have owned this book for over one year, but have put off reading it in favor of others because I can not claim to be a boxing fan. I finally reluctantly started to read it, and found it to be so interesting I finished it in three days. The book's main focus, of course, is on the two fights between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling. Although Louis won the heavyweight title in defeating Jack Sharkey he knew he wouldn't be recognized as the true title holdler until he avenged a previous loss to Schmeling. Author David Margolick provides ample and interesting prefight hype and postfight reaction for both contests in addition to sports and movie celebrities' interest. Margolick skillfully weaves the attitudes of African Americans and Jews along with the racist attitudes of the American South in regard to the matches. Comments from several newspapers citing the stereotypes popular at the time are also provided. Finally Louis's and Schmeling's role during World War II and post war life is also provided. I felt this book provided me with a taste of what life was like between America and Germany during this time period. Boxing fan or not, I feel you are sure to enjoy the book.
Illuminating as Sportswriting ... Insightful as History ... Exceptional.......2007-01-21
An in depth look at the convergence of the boxing careers of Joe Louis and Max Schmeling. Exhaustively researched and fully indexed, BEYOND THE GLORY provides not just an analysis of one the most heralded sporting events of all times, but also gives the reader an extremely intelligent, insightful view of the cultural, social, and political forces at work in America and Germany in the mid 1930s that produced this monumental sporting event. Numerous photos add greatly to the impact of this excellent book. A beautifully written, amazing document ... equally valuable as a history text and as a chronicle of a heavyweight championship fight.
Joe fights many fronts.......2006-10-01
There's an interesting twist to this book that I didn't expect. American Jews identified with Joe Lewis because he was fighting Max Shmelling, who was identified with Nazi Germany. When Joe won, jews and blacks hugged and cheered together. There is debate as to whther or not Shmelling was really a Nazo or not. Most likely he was caught in the middle of a political spiral that he had no contraol over. The author expertly crafts the behind the scenes of setting up fights, the fight itself and the aftermath of the winners and losers.
Social history At Its Best!.......2006-09-26
Get a taste of the 1930's with this winning review of Louis /Smelling & much more.The author can write and certainly did lots and lots and lots of research. More important than Jackie Robinsons'baseball triumph, Louis'Lose and later victory brought America to an important point in bettering race relations.There is quite a bit of star studded name droping at ringside, most of whom the 20th Century historically deficient reader may not recognize.The author sometimes assumes the reader is familiar with a hundred phrases, terms and names such as Neville Chamberlin,Etheopias plight,CCC,Leni Reifenstal, and "brownshirts",though He briefly clarifies some of these at least once.Well worth reading.!
EXCELLENT READ FOR SEVERAL REASONS.......2006-06-17
Beyond Gory was a true surprise. I must first admit to not being much of a boxing fan, never have been, but this work is much more that just about this particular sport. First, we have a wonderful social history of a very strange and a very hard time this country went through. Secondly, the social commentary of both the author and of hundreds of writers before him are well documented here and thirdly, this is a very, very good sports book. As an autobiography on either of these fighters, the work is not all that strong, but then that really was not the purpose of this work. We do get a good working knowledge of both fighter's careers and where their motivation came from, but more importantly we get a great look at the social conditions which existed at that time. This in turn gives of a great measuring tool to see how far we have come (or, if you will, how far we have to go). The author has used wonderful excerpts from past publications of both black and white commentators of the time in this country and the rest of the world along with the commentaries of Nazi Germany. We get a glimpse of why our world was like it was at that time. This work is well written, well researched and is just filled with bits of obscure information that is absolutely a delight and certainly gives us thoughts to ponder. I must admit to have been fascinated from cover to cover with this work and do recommend it highly.
Book Description
Max Schmeling is the only living man who has had lengthy conversations with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Pope Pius XII, Adolf Hitler, and Marlene Dietrich. World Heavyweight Champion from 1930 to 1932, Schmeling's riveting autobiography is finally made available in English translation after years as a best seller in Germany.
Customer Reviews:
A Little Dry.......2007-01-25
Good informative book, but a little dry.
Its the only thing out there for Schmeling fans though.
Max Schmeling An Autobiography.......2006-02-27
Well written, fascinating & informative book. Highlights:
Boxing history-preparation for & recounting of the first Joe Lewis match
Germany between the Wars- the Berlin culture & it's vitality. The rise of Hitler.
His experiences in the the cultural society,& the political arena.
Max was married only once to Anny Ondra, a contempory, & a famous European star.
--so a love story too.
Alfred Hitchcock starred Anny Ondra inThe Manxman, a silent film, & Blackmail,his & England's first talkie-both are available dvd. Hitch never missed anything.
Max Schmeling An Autobiography.......2006-02-27
Well written, fascinating & informative book. Highlights:
Boxing history-preparation for & recounting of the first Joe Lewis match
Germany between the Wars- the Berlin culture & it's vitality. The rise of Hitler.
His experiences in the the cultural society,& the political arena.
Max was married only once to Anny Ondra, a contempory, & a famous European star.
--so a love story too.
Alfred Hitchcock starred Anny Ondra inThe Manxman, a silent film, & Blackmail,his & England's first talkie-both are available dvd. Hitch never missed anything.
A truly wonderful book, even for non-boxing fans.......2005-06-16
I'm not really a boxing fan, though like most people who enjoy watching and participating in sports in general, I've tried to read up on the history of boxing in order to be informed on the sport.
Having said all that, I walked into reading this autobiography with the same opinion that a lot of Americans have about Max Schmeling (that is, if they even know who he is since his era was over seventy years ago) -- that Schmeling was a fanatical Nazi, Hitler's pampered, so-called "Aryan Showhorse" who represented aryan supremacy, and who, in a wonderful example of poetic justice, received a savage comeuppance at the hands of the sensational Joe Louis in their mythical 1938 rematch.
Schmeling, in his wonderfully-written autobiography, exposes America's cartoonish characterization of him, and the political and racial hype surrounding both his matches with Joe Louis as precisely that -- a myth. The great thing about this book is that it is filled with class -- that is, Schmeling never outrightly goes on the attack against his critics or seems bitter at all that he (and perhaps to an even greater extent, Joe Louis) was exploited in a deeply personal way by fight promotors. Schmeling simply tells the story of his life both in and out of the ring, and it is his obvious honesty about both that do much to mitigate the idea that he is some sort of white supremicist.
Schmeling's story not only outlines the history of his own career in the ring, but in doing so also describes in detail the nature of the heavyweight boxing game in the 1920s through the 1940s. Along the way the reader learns the fascinating story of Germany's social scene -- particularly among young adults, as Schmeling was -- during that country's Weimar government years, and how Hitler's ascension to power in 1933 did much to destroy all that, and a large portion of Schmeling's social circle as well.
Schmeling also talks about how his employment of a Jewish trainer/coach was at odds with the nazi government, and how he was asked to disassociate himself from his many Jewish friends when he became champion (after convincingly earning a 15 round decision over Jack Sharkey in the early 30s). Of course he never disassociated himself from any of his friends on account of their religion, but typical boxing fans are unaware of this and cling to the glib and convenient stereotype of Schmeling as a racist monster.
Schmeling also gets rated by American press as some kind of sneering, aristocratic German snob who walked into the second Louis fight supremely confident that he could repeat his earlier triumph over the Brown bomber. Additionally, American press irresponsibly and incorrectly asserted that Schmeling wanted a victory over Louis to once and for all prove the supremacy of the Aryan race.
Of course, anyone interested in more than the grotesque distortions of people who want to make money and sell tickets to fill stadium seats will investigate and realize that Joe Louis was highly-favored to defeat Schmeling in both their first and second bouts, and that Schmeling was never a smug aristocrat but came from a working class background not astronomically removed from the income level of Joe Louis in his youth.
Schmeling's spectacular victory over Louis in their first bout (1936) is often written off by many who ought to know better (such as sportswriters, who supposedly know more than the average fan) as some kind of fluke, and that the second fight (which Louis won) is the only one that really counts.
It is clear from reading this autobiography that Schmeling did a tremendous amount of training for the Louis fight, and approached the bout with an almost scientific strategy to defeat the American boxer. And, lest people be misled that Louis somehow walked into the first bout overconfident and convinced of his own invincibility, readers might be interested to know that Louis himself trained hard for this fight, as it was his tune-up and final step before an eventual showdown with titleholder James Braddock.
Everyone knows that Schmeling won the first fight. He not only won, he demolished Joe Louis. Fifteen minutes after the fight was over, Joe Louis was still unconscious. What people who adore Joe Louis (I myself am more a fan of Joe Louis than I am of Max Schmeling) often don't want to recognize is that in the first Schmeling bout, Schmeling was simply the better man. This despite Joe Louis being hugely favored to win the fight. Everyone thought Joe Louis would easily destroy Schmeling (who even in 1936 was already over-the-hill and in decline as an athlete), and having their expectations thus dashed, transformed Schmeling into an ultra-villain in the 1938 bout to generate interest for a match between good and evil.
Schmeling notes with sadness but no bitterness that New Yorkers mobbed him and cheered for him in 1936 for having the courage to do battle against a man who defeated Max Baer (hitherto considered the best heavyweight on the planet, and even today considered one of the potentially great champions had he not self-destructed mentally), but booed him in 1938 because he was a "nazi."
Schmeling also writes about the politics that dictated the events that followed his sensational victory. Logically, since he destroyed Louis, he should have been next in line to fight Braddock for the title. However, since many people in positions of power in the boxing world didn't want to see the title go to germany (where they feared with a reasonable amount of justification) that it would be protected from American fighters, they prudently ducked Schmeling and still allowed the Louis-Braddock bout to go through. If Braddock won, fine, and if Louis -- the heavyweight phenom -- won, better still. But no one doubted that either Louis or Schmeling would have any trouble uncrowning Braddock, who is considered something of a caretaker champion. Thus Schmeling was shut out and at 35 past the point where he could seriously mount another title run.
The tragedies of Schmeling's boxing career are poignantly described in his autobiography, as are the deep-seated turmoils engulfing Germany during this period as the world inched ever closer to war.
Joe Louis won the second fight as a phenomenally-talented young man in his prime (24 years old) against a technically-sound though never spectacular 35 year old fighter with a great right hand punch but whose legs and back no longer were what they once were. The outcome was inevitable but the fight nevertheless generated profound interest because Schmeling won the first bout and the American media falsely and irresponsibly portrayed the second bout as some kind of showdown between Nazi germany and the Democratic USA (ironically, Joe Louis would have to have sat in the back of the bus to Madison Square Garden if he took one). Joe Louis crushed Schmeling, but Schmeling, to his credit, courageously challenged Louis to a third bout to serve as a rubber match, which Louis and his handlers refused to countenance.
Both Louis and Schmeling are noted on the record as stating they were never malignant toward one another, in fact they became good friends after their fights, maintaining correspondence and visiting each other often, and they highly respected each other. Both have asserted that the "showdown of the races" atmosphere generated for the second bout was a marketing ploy designed to exploit them both. When America couldn't exploit Louis anymore they hung him out to dry and left him penniless. Who helped him? That "evil villain" Schmeling.
Schmeling also writes about his life and times as a paratrooper in World War 2, which is in and of itself incredible as Schmeling is over six feet tall and heavy, not exactly prerequisites for an airborne soldier.
Eventually after reading this book one comes to realize that Schmeling was a better than average boxer but a magnificent, highly-intelligent human being.
Highly recommended.
Under-rated Champion, Under-appreciated Man.......2005-04-19
For boxing history fans, this autobiography is a treasure trove of information. Schmeling, who only recently died at the age of 99, takes the reader inside the boxing intrigues of the 1930s as well as his interaction with the Nazis as they consolidated power in Germany. Contrary to the biased and uninformed Publishers Weekly review above, Schmeling was no Nazi and had no sympathy with their aims (a fact well known to anyone with any acquaintance with boxing history). When ordered by the Nazis to divorce his Czech wife and to fire his American Jewish manager, Schmeling refused. The Nazis were interested in him for one reason, as a propaganda piece.
Schmeling was a solid and steady, though unexciting fighter. He won the championship by a foul and lost it via a bad decision (with his manager giving the world the famous, "we wuz robbed" quip). He was champion in a time of solid but not great fighters. However, the fact that he upset Joe Louis, when Louis appeared to be invincible, demonstrates that he was a first-rate fighter for any era.
The book is a re-issue of Schmeling's 1977 German autobiography with a new epilogue written by Schmeling in the late nineties. Since the book was originally published in Germany and written for German audiences, many of the personalities that Schmeling mentions will be unknown to most Americans. Thankfully, the book includes a glossary to inform the reader who the personalities were. It would have been more helpful to have had these as footnotes but that would have probably required new typesetting and thus upped publishing costs. I do have one major disappointment with the book. It has very detailed coverage of Schmeling's fighting years and some on his activities immediately after the war but I wanted to know more about Schmeling's later years. He became a wealthy businessman who was very philanthropic. Schmeling's basic modesty is probably the explanation for this omission but it still left a gap that needed filling.
In short, this is an excellent book for someone who loves boxing history and wants additional information on some of the key fights and events of the first half of the 20th century.
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