Everyone knows the file: almanacs, specialized magazines and press clipping services. A handful know the man. But only Muhammad Ali knows his life as he lived it. The biggest is Ali’s own story. For six years he worked, traveled and spoke with Richard Durham, a writer of breathtaking talent, and the result is fascinating in its brilliance, its drama, its humanity and its pure entertainment. This is not a documented album of victories and defeats strung together with anecdotes; nor is it a thin potpourri of locker room gags. This book, like Ali, who elicited all reactions except indifference, goes straight to where the responses directed at him have always been tripe. When the history of the 20th century is finally recorded, it must include Muhammad Ali. He is “the greatest”.
