Boxing: A Cultural History

This is a work of art! While I typically donate the physical books that I buy to the public library. This literary gem will be sitting on my shelf for years and moves to come. It's a joy to read of a sport one enjoys written with such clarity and appreciation for the literal art that the sport has inspired through the ages. It created a sense of connections with other followers of the sport through the millenia (something few other sports fans can claim!) and realize just how unchanged the sport remains. This is for someone with a taste for historical snippets and a sense of whimsy.

This is not a book for detailed fight histories of Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson; it is probably more "cultural history" than "boxing"; it is somehow both heavily-footnoted and fun reading. It turns out that boxing provides a fascinating lens through which to view the past. The author shows boxing affecting every level of society and appearing in seemingly every form of art. It has come and gone from mainstream fashion more than once. As the author puts it at the end of the first chapter, boxing seems to contain a "mixture . . . which has made it for so long and so productively a way to imagine conflict".

Great read. there are lots of books written on boxing, but to have this complete history from a cultural perspective is fantastic. Well written and well researched. Well balanced. Lots of historical photos to add color and depth to the read as well. Highly recommend this book for sports and boxing fans alike.

I have had Kasia Boddy's book on my self for eight years. Each time I pick it up, I am disappointed. Each time I put it down, I ask myself :"For whom is this book intended ?" It is full of boxing bits, but it is not a boxing book. It lacks the consistency of a boxing history. It does not describe either training methods or the lives of the fighters. Nor is it a literary history of the stories of boxers, their fights and the meaning of those fights. It claims to be a cultural history of boxing, and admittedly it begins with a reference to Albert Camus in the first paragraph and then shifts to the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians in the first chapter. But these pages have been handled in more detail in many other books. Nor does Dr. Boddy reward us with unique insights, such as one might find in Joyce Carol Oates. Homer and Virgil, Dr. Boddy reminds us, compared boxing to war. We might describe boxing as war with rules. But Dr. Boddy does not. Instead she flits across a great deal of history in one page mentioning, in addition to Homer and Virgil, Epieos, Achilles, Turnus, Dares and Enthellus, Plato, Plutarch, Marcus Aurelius, Aristotle and St. Paul. As for the literary works, on this same page, she includes the Illiad, the Aeneid, the Republic, Plato's Laws, the Nicomachean Ethics and the First Letter to the Corinthians. This is a veritable tour de force, but what does it teach us about boxing ? (p.14-15) After this brief look at the classical period she jumps to The English Golden Age which begins with a mention of a "fray" at Westminster stairs between a Dutchman and a waterman (a boatman who ferried people across the Thames) on August 5, 1660. She mentions the first named boxing match which was recorded in The True Protestant Mercury of December 31, 1681. She illustrates this with a picture of shawl wrestling from Queen Mary's Psalter dated 1310-1320 and a picture of James Figg preparing for a sword-fight c. 1794 (which was called a "prizefight" in England). All of these are useful bits of information, and could indeed be tied together to provide an insight to the history of boxing, but they are not. If boxing was considered training for warfare by the Greeks and Romans, gambling was the driving force of boxing in the English golden Age. But this theme is not developed either. Later we encounter boxing as an antidote for effeminacy, as the native tools of a gentleman, and as the badge of muscular Christianity. But each of these and other themes are dealt with en passant in the text. One cannot go to any section of the book to find any particular theme developed at length. She also delves briefly into the role played by Negroes in boxing and brings to our attention the work of Paul Robeson as well as Jack Johnson and James Weldon Johnson. Eventually, it all becomes confusing. In desperation one flips to the back of the book to find the conclusion so that one may understand the point of the book. Yet here again the reader is disappointed. Dr. Boddy began the book with the statement that boxing was "utterly Manichean," that is dualistic, a struggle between good and evil, light and dark. She ends the book with the same statement: "as Sonny Liston pointed out, its always the same story -- the good guy versus the bad guy -- new versions of good and bad are forever forthcoming. Throughout its long history as sport, boxing has remained unfailingly eloquent. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, our appetite for its stories remains undiminished." (p.391) Dr. Boddy is, no doubt, a very cultured person. She knows her literature and can reference it. But in her hands boxing is not eloquent and our appetite for its stories are not fulfilled.

I was given this--wouldn't have imagined that I was interested in boxing. After reading the section on Dickens (the reason I was given the book), I started the preceding chapter, then started from the beginning, then had to read the end. Boddy's writing is so witty and interesting and her bits of information so thought-provoking that I kept wanting to read it to friends. (I had to explain all my references to 'claret,' Regency slang for 'blood.') Everyone I've shown it to has found a different reason for wanting to read it. It's a bit like an encyclopaedia and provides the same pleasure as the Oxford Companion to Food. The illustrations are wonderful. This book makes a wonderful present, even to oneself.

Kasia Boddy's book is the most thorough, entertaining, and informative book on boxing I've ever seen. The color illustrations are dazzling. She is a marvel. If you'd like to hear my WPKN interview with Kasia from last year: [....]

It's all you need to know about boxing!

I am almost half way through this book and I think it's frustrating that the author goes into quoting movies or public commentary during each time he's writing for (for instance movies from the 1930s). And when he does so, it really gets disconnected from the actual timeline of boxers and for pages and pages and pages. I thought I am getting a book about every boxer of his/her own time and those people's backstories. But nope.

Brilliant book, I bought it for my fiance as a stocking filler and he loves it. Really infromative without being a typical stuffy factual book. Really interesting.

This is a work of art! While I typically donate the physical books that I buy to the public library. This literary gem will be sitting on my shelf for years and moves to come. It's a joy to read of a sport one enjoys written with such clarity and appreciation for the literal art that the sport has inspired through the ages. It created a sense of connections with other followers of the sport through the millenia (something few other sports fans can claim!) and realize just how unchanged the sport remains. This is for someone with a taste for historical snippets and a sense of whimsy.

This is not a book for detailed fight histories of Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson; it is probably more "cultural history" than "boxing"; it is somehow both heavily-footnoted and fun reading. It turns out that boxing provides a fascinating lens through which to view the past. The author shows boxing affecting every level of society and appearing in seemingly every form of art. It has come and gone from mainstream fashion more than once. As the author puts it at the end of the first chapter, boxing seems to contain a "mixture . . . which has made it for so long and so productively a way to imagine conflict".

Great read. there are lots of books written on boxing, but to have this complete history from a cultural perspective is fantastic. Well written and well researched. Well balanced. Lots of historical photos to add color and depth to the read as well. Highly recommend this book for sports and boxing fans alike.

I have had Kasia Boddy's book on my self for eight years. Each time I pick it up, I am disappointed. Each time I put it down, I ask myself :"For whom is this book intended ?" It is full of boxing bits, but it is not a boxing book. It lacks the consistency of a boxing history. It does not describe either training methods or the lives of the fighters. Nor is it a literary history of the stories of boxers, their fights and the meaning of those fights. It claims to be a cultural history of boxing, and admittedly it begins with a reference to Albert Camus in the first paragraph and then shifts to the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians in the first chapter. But these pages have been handled in more detail in many other books. Nor does Dr. Boddy reward us with unique insights, such as one might find in Joyce Carol Oates. Homer and Virgil, Dr. Boddy reminds us, compared boxing to war. We might describe boxing as war with rules. But Dr. Boddy does not. Instead she flits across a great deal of history in one page mentioning, in addition to Homer and Virgil, Epieos, Achilles, Turnus, Dares and Enthellus, Plato, Plutarch, Marcus Aurelius, Aristotle and St. Paul. As for the literary works, on this same page, she includes the Illiad, the Aeneid, the Republic, Plato's Laws, the Nicomachean Ethics and the First Letter to the Corinthians. This is a veritable tour de force, but what does it teach us about boxing ? (p.14-15) After this brief look at the classical period she jumps to The English Golden Age which begins with a mention of a "fray" at Westminster stairs between a Dutchman and a waterman (a boatman who ferried people across the Thames) on August 5, 1660. She mentions the first named boxing match which was recorded in The True Protestant Mercury of December 31, 1681. She illustrates this with a picture of shawl wrestling from Queen Mary's Psalter dated 1310-1320 and a picture of James Figg preparing for a sword-fight c. 1794 (which was called a "prizefight" in England). All of these are useful bits of information, and could indeed be tied together to provide an insight to the history of boxing, but they are not. If boxing was considered training for warfare by the Greeks and Romans, gambling was the driving force of boxing in the English golden Age. But this theme is not developed either. Later we encounter boxing as an antidote for effeminacy, as the native tools of a gentleman, and as the badge of muscular Christianity. But each of these and other themes are dealt with en passant in the text. One cannot go to any section of the book to find any particular theme developed at length. She also delves briefly into the role played by Negroes in boxing and brings to our attention the work of Paul Robeson as well as Jack Johnson and James Weldon Johnson. Eventually, it all becomes confusing. In desperation one flips to the back of the book to find the conclusion so that one may understand the point of the book. Yet here again the reader is disappointed. Dr. Boddy began the book with the statement that boxing was "utterly Manichean," that is dualistic, a struggle between good and evil, light and dark. She ends the book with the same statement: "as Sonny Liston pointed out, its always the same story -- the good guy versus the bad guy -- new versions of good and bad are forever forthcoming. Throughout its long history as sport, boxing has remained unfailingly eloquent. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, our appetite for its stories remains undiminished." (p.391) Dr. Boddy is, no doubt, a very cultured person. She knows her literature and can reference it. But in her hands boxing is not eloquent and our appetite for its stories are not fulfilled.

I was given this--wouldn't have imagined that I was interested in boxing. After reading the section on Dickens (the reason I was given the book), I started the preceding chapter, then started from the beginning, then had to read the end. Boddy's writing is so witty and interesting and her bits of information so thought-provoking that I kept wanting to read it to friends. (I had to explain all my references to 'claret,' Regency slang for 'blood.') Everyone I've shown it to has found a different reason for wanting to read it. It's a bit like an encyclopaedia and provides the same pleasure as the Oxford Companion to Food. The illustrations are wonderful. This book makes a wonderful present, even to oneself.

Kasia Boddy's book is the most thorough, entertaining, and informative book on boxing I've ever seen. The color illustrations are dazzling. She is a marvel. If you'd like to hear my WPKN interview with Kasia from last year: [....]

It's all you need to know about boxing!

I am almost half way through this book and I think it's frustrating that the author goes into quoting movies or public commentary during each time he's writing for (for instance movies from the 1930s). And when he does so, it really gets disconnected from the actual timeline of boxers and for pages and pages and pages. I thought I am getting a book about every boxer of his/her own time and those people's backstories. But nope.

Brilliant book, I bought it for my fiance as a stocking filler and he loves it. Really infromative without being a typical stuffy factual book. Really interesting.