Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight: Cassius Clay vs. the United States of America
Here, Bingham (Muhammad Ali: A Thirty-Year Journey), Muhammad Ali's best friend and favorite photographer, contends that the former heavyweight champ's greatest legacy is that, owing to his conversion to the Nation of Islam and subsequent refusal to enter the military during the Vietnam War, Ali served as a touchstone for the racial and antiwar upheavals that rocked the Sixties and changed our country. Bingham offers a friendly portrayal of the conscientious objector/Black Muslim minister Ali but doesn't beyond a shadow of a doubt answer the question of whether his motives for evading the draft were self-serving, racial, or religious--though it is easy to imagine that at the least they might have evolved from the former to the latter. One cannot deny Ali's influence on his times, though. And neither can one deny that, whatever his motives for refusing military service, he paid a great price by being banned from boxing for three and a half years during his prime. While not "The Greatest," as its subject proclaimed himself, Bingham's book deserves a place in the sports collections of most public libraries. With a foreword by Ali himself, this book ably supplements the Hauser and Remnick biographies.-Jim G. Burns, Ottumwa P.L., IACopyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.