Beyond Glory: Max Schmeling vs. Joe Louis and a World on the Brink - Softcover

'Even if you've never seen a boxing match, Beyond Glory is an irresistible read. For fans it is indispensable' Allen Barra, Los Angeles Times 'Beyond Glory is historical reportage, a heavyweight of a book that is likely to be the definitive chronicle of its subject' Joyce Carol Oates, New York Times 'David Margolick's superb new book about the confrontations in the late 1930s between the black American Joe Louis and Adolf Hitler's champion, Max Schmeling, is one of the best books about boxing I've read' George Rosie, Sunday Herald 'It brings to life the ambiguities and tensions of the pre-war years. Beyond Glory is likely to remain the definitive account of the Louis/Schmeling encounters and why they mattered' Daily Telegraph

In 1938, a match was to be fought between two rival boxers - Max Schmeling and Joe Louis. After his win in 1936 against Louis, Schmeling had become the toast of Nazi Germany and now in his corner were Hitler and Goebbels, along with millions of Germans for whom Schmeling symbolised not just national pride but Aryan supremacy. Joe Louis, the ferocious young black boxer, had in his corner almost the entire black community of the US, not to mention many in the Caribbean and Africa, the young Nelson Mandela among them. Alongside, the blacks were Jews everywhere, including those trapped in Hitler's Europe. And, to a degree unprecedented in 1930s America, there was a huge population of the white community who hoped that a black man would knock out a white man. "Beyond Glory" tells this classic story, which pulses with energy and captures the two fighters and the passions they aroused in a world that was about to change for ever.