Men of Steel

Like any pro sport without a dominant sanctioning body, boxing poses difficulties for historians. Data tends to be missing, incomplete, or contradictory. In my research, I find that many writers covering the 1920s and 1930s have done shallow work resulting in errors. Walsh's research is deep and thorough. I wish he included an appendix with information about his source material (possibly writer/historian Gilbert Odd's personal archives!) but that's quibbling since this is a popular, not academic, book. Every fighter has admirers and detractors, and Walsh is even handed in his descriptions of boxing skills. His assessments tend to be consistent with most boxing critics. What is best, perhaps, is the way he makes his subjects come alive, placing them in the context of their times and land. I am intrigued, for example, that someone living in England captured so well the open spirit of my home, St. Paul, Minnesota, during the Roaring 20s. Middleweight is the point in boxing where the power of the heavier fighters and the speed of the lighter ones come together. Walsh has written the definitive history of the men truly at boxing's apex.