num_pages: 368
description: An insightful portrait of Muhammed Ali from the New York Times bestselling author of At the Altar of Speed and The Big Bam. It centers on the cultural and political implications of Ali's refusal of service in the military and the key moments in a life that was as high profile and transformative as any in the twentieth century. With the death of Muhammad Ali in June 2016 the media and America in general have remembered a hero a heavyweight champion an Olympic gold medalist an icon and a man who represents the sheer greatness of America. New York Times bestselling author Leigh Montville goes deeper with a fascinating chronicle of a story that has been largely untold. Muhammad Ali in the late 1960s was young successful brash and hugely admired but with some reservations. He was bombastic and cocky in a way that captured the imagination of America but also drew its detractors. He was a bold young African American in an era when few people were as outspoken. He renounced his name Cassius Clay as being his 'slave name ' and joined the Nation of Islam renaming himself Muhammad Ali. And finally in 1966 after being drafted he refused to join the military for religious and conscientious reasons triggering a fight that was larger than any of his bouts in the ring. What followed was a period of legal battles of cultural obsession and in some ways of being the very embodiment of the civil rights movement located in the heart of one man. Muhammad Ali was the tip of the arrow and Leigh Montville brilliantly assembles all the boxing the charisma the cultural and political shifting tides and ultimately the enormous waft of entertainment that always surrounded Ali. Muhammed Ali vs. the United States of America is an important and incredibly engaging book.
language: English
title: Sting Like a Bee: Muhammad Ali vs. the United States of America, 1966-1971
publisher: Doubleday