A review by scottjbaxter
Ali: A Life by Jonathan Eig

I finished Jonathan Eig's excellent book Ali: A life a few days ago. Muhammad Ali AKA Cassius Clay was certainly a remarkable figure who provides insight into multiple aspects of American history. Ali touches on sports (boxing and the olympics -- Ali lighting the Olympic torch in 1996 was a moment), religion (the African-American religious experience, and Malcolm X), politics (Vietnam), celebrity culture, and the excesses of the late 1960s and 1970s (promiscuous sex).

If you want a succinct and enjoyable look at the life of Ali, let me suggest the obituary video that the New York Times produced, What's My Name.

While Ali was a hero to so many people because, as Spike Lee once said, "he was handsome, he was articulate, and he was whopping ass. No one fused sports and politics like Ali did." Ali was stripped of his heavyweight boxing title in 1967 when he refused to be inducted into the army for the war in Vietnam. This resulted in a tremendous loss of income and a career change for Ali, who, as a high school dropout, had very few job skills outside of boxing. The question could be asked, why were other superstars of sports, Michael Jordan comes to mind, so much more interested in protecting their careers and sponsorship deals than standing up for important social and political ideas.

Muhammad Ali, in addition to his incredible talent and achievement as a boxer, as a self-promoter, and as a symbol for Black people, was a flawed person. His two biggest flaws were his willingness to trust people and his gullibility and his sex life.

Muhammad Ali's first flaw was that he was too willing to trust people.

Ali was a very social person and was always surrounded by people that he either paid or gave money to. Some people, like Angelo Dundee, worked for him offering professional services. Others, like Bundini Brown, were there for something like moral support and encouragement. (Brown created the lines "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" and "Rumble, young man, rumble.") Some, especially Don King and Herbert Muhammad, simply used him as a cash cow. At one point, Ali hired a lawyer to look into his finances who saw that Don King still owed him $1.2 million. The lawyer called king and said he would sue. So, King had a suitcase delivered to Ali via a contact at the Nation of Islam and Ali instructed his lawyer not to pursue the matter any further.

Muhammad Ali's second flaw was that he was a sex addict.

Ali was married four times. He had nine children (seven daughters and two sons) -- there are, more than likely, other children that he did not acknowledge. He also had many girlfriends, and also hired prostitutes. In fact, Ali was with a prostitute hours before one of his big fights in New York City. There were times when he was having sex with another woman while his wife was in the other room.

Having described two of Ali's biggest flaws, let me end this review by saying that Ali was also a remarkable human being. He could be generous and loved to make people welcome. He was known for doing magic tricks and public appearances. And he often stayed for hours longer than necessary to sign autographs for fans. He inspired an entire generation of young people to believe that they could accomplish great things regardless of the color of their skin.