Beyond Glory: Joe Louis Vs. Max Schmeling, and a World on the Brink

David Margolick's book is a remarkably vivid and engrossing account that goes well beyond the annals of boxing--or even sports history--to recover an era in American and German history, in the 1930s, when two men--one black, one white--seemed to symbolize more than pugilism. The author is especially good at conveying the tensions and excitement that could be generated by heavyweight boxers, and at conjuring up the florid prose of sportswriters during the Great Depression. The research conducted for this book is amazing, and the story that Margolick tells does not flag.

Beyond Glory is a wonderful combination of a great sports book and a great history book. It tells the fascinating story of heavyweight boxing in the 1930s while placing the boxers and the characters who surrounded them into the equally fascinating -- and frightening -- national and international events of the 1930s. The sports and history are woven together in a manner that is gripping but nonetheless unbiased. Great sports mixed with great history makes this book a rare treat.

In Beyong Glory, his latest book, David Margolick has written an enthralling book about two boxers that captures not only the heart-stopping drama of the Louis-Schmeling fights but also American and German life in the 1930s. If you don't think that you care anything about boxing or even sports, this book will change your mind. I judge a great biography by not how well the central figures are presented but by how well the secondary personalities are realized. In Beyond Glory, Margolick surrounds Louis and Schmeling with flesh-and-blood characters. Nazi hacks, Runyonesque boxing sorts, famous wives--they make the Beyond Glory live. If you want to understand America in the 1930s, comprehening why Louis and Schmeling mattered would be a fine place to begin your study

I write this review as a 50 year old baby boomer, who as a child lived in the South through the civil rights struggles of the 60s, having parents from New York City, having a father who trod across Europe in W.W.II, and having family lost and damaged by Nazi terror. Despite that, and despite knowing so much of that history, the doors to the past opened by David Margolick's Beyond Glory were wonderfully and surprisingly illuminating. Margolick does this by not just retelling the wonderful story of these classic boxing matches, but by presenting much of the story through the words of the journalists of the day. In doing so, the book carefully chronicles the paths to and from these historic fights, and in doing so, not only tells the tale of wonderful boxing characters, but exposes both the pervasiveness of racism in America, and the astonishing face of anti-Semitism and racism that was the Third Reich. Even though it is recent history, which we think we know well, it is still surprising to see and understand the clarity and depth of these issues as reported in Beyond Glory, in part through the eyes and words of an earlier generation of newspaper reporters. (As newspapers today shrink and consolidate, the creativity and glory of those reporters is especially interesting.) The magic of what Margolick has done is to present the history of the Louis-Schmeling fights by weaving the words of the journalists of the day, reporters long silent, who wrote in the style of the day--and with the prejudices of the day. Margolick does not spare us the ugly side of either American racism, or German repression. Mainstream American journalism bluntly writing about this "colored boy," northern cities (not just southern) with segregated fight attendance, German media bluntly assailing the evil Jewish control of all things American, the weakness of American reliance upon Louis, a man from an "inferior race". We all know these things, but to read them in the day to day quotidian press of those times gives vivid life to those years. One can see the social struggle far beyond the ring where these fights were waged, and it is truly eye opening. As well, it is fascinating to see the frightening German press, and on the American side, two different press corps, the white press, and the black press. Amid the racism of the thirties, there stirred the growing civil rights movement in a vital black press (now largely forgotten) with its own distinct voice, again brought to life in Beyond Glory. By not only reporting on the history of these famous fights, but fully immersing us literally in the words of the day, Margolick brings vivid life and reality to an extraordinarily important transition in history. By putting us back in those days, he not only well presents the course of these fights, the wonderfully colorful characters of the boxing game, the descent of the world into war, but gives a different understanding of our own history than might be expected. Beyond G

Like Geoffrey Ward's account of the life of boxer Jack Johnson (in "Unforgivable Blackness" --2004) which was a cultural snapshot of racism and culture in the first third of the 20th century, Mr Margolick has written a boxing companion for the middle third of the 20th century. His tale of the bouts between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling in the 1930's offers another snapshot of racism and culture in American and Germany. Max Schmeling was the Aryan champion for Hilter who had been humilated in his master race rantings by the four gold medals of Jesse Owens in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Though never a Nazi, Mr. Schmeling was part of the German propaganda machine with his 12th round knockout of Mr. Louis in 1936. Since their rematch was so anti-climatic in 1938 (Mr. Louis utterly dominated Mr. Schmeling in a first round TKO), Mr Margolick focuses on the politics of boxing, of America, and of Nazi Germany by contrasting their two very different careers and post-boxing lives. This will be considered the definitive story of their bouts and an excellent introduction to their lives.