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

by David Margolick

Nothing in the annals of sports has aroused more passion than the heavyweight fights in New York in 1936 and 1938 between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling — bouts that symbolized the hopes, hatreds, and fears of a world moving toward total war. Acclaimed journalist David Margolick takes us into the careers of both men — a black American and a Nazi German hero — and depicts the extraordinary buildup to their legendary 1938 rematch. Vividly capturing the outpouring of emotion that the two fighters brought forth, Margolick brilliantly illuminates the cultural and social divisions that they came to represent.

Genres: Sports, History, Nonfiction, American History, African American, World War II, Biography

423 pages, Paperback

First published September 2, 2002

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An exceptional work of sports research and coverage of the Nazi party’s interest in boxing to be sure. But there was not enough character study that could be bring me under the spell of either Joe Louis or Max Schmeling.

The latter half of the book (which includes the penultimate rematch) was much more interesting and dramatic than the first half. The coverage of the earlier fights in the book were superficial at best.

3.5 stars.

[Andrew Backs · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are a fan of the sport, the times, or Joe Louis then I'd highly recommend this book. I've always found boxing fascinating especially during its heyday in the United States. I have always been intrigued by the public view of the sport and how it can champion or villianize it's competitors. The one downfall of this book is that the research is so indepth that it can become burdensome to read.

Again not for the average reader but if you take a special interest in the sport, I'd recommend picking this one up.

[Jeff Mazurek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too thoroughly researched to be read briskly, which may put off people who just want to read about the fighters, the personalities, and so on.

Margolick, however, must be praised for so completely giving this reader a sense of how fantastically popular the sport of boxing once was. He describes not only how dramatic the confrontations between these two fighters were, but underscores the nationalistic importance both fighters reluctantly accrued, and explores the racial politics surrounding both.

[Gabriel Olmeda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book took me awhile to read but it was great. The writing was so entertaining especially when describing the actual fights. I could see each punch Joe Louis or Max Schmelling threw. It made a little sad that boxing no longer has its allure as in this golden era.

Also I knew nothing about this fight and now I come out thinking it was a historical event that spiraled into the same obscurity as boxing itself. An excellent read but sometimes there was too much description of the reviews from the fight. Often times I skipped those.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too many contemporary newspaper quotes and generally too little analysis hamper this book from being a very important contribution to the history of the period of the Louis-Schmeling fights. This era, the 1930s, was fraught with racism on both sides of the Atlantic, and frequent manipulations in the sport of boxing to determine who would hold the heavyweight title.

[Carrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why would I like a book about boxing?? Because this one is about history and politics and racism and money and - oh yeah, sometimes they box.

[Javier HG · Rating 3 out of 5]

La verdad es que los deportes me dan un poco igual y de boxeo sé poquito, pero me encantan las buenas historias y "Beyond Glory: Max Schmeling vs. Joe Louis and a World on the Brink" de David Margolick cuenta una muy buena historia.

Tras los locos años 20, el boxeo había perdido vigor y presencia en los medios. No había súper estrellas como Jack Dempsey ni combates retransmitidos a todo el país. Además seguía existiendo segregación en el deporte tras la experiencia del boxeador negro Jack Johnson en la década de 1900. Provocador nato Johnson era un bocazas dentro y fuera del ring, ganaba combates y salía con mujeres blancas. En el sur de los EE.UU., amenazaban con lincharlo si aparecía.

A esto hay que añadir un mundo recuperándose de la Gran Depresión, con sistemas democráticos amenazados y dictadores surgiendo por doquier. Es este entorno en el que surgieron Max Schmelling y Joe Louis.

El alemán Schmelling ya había competido en la década de 1920 y peleaba en combates a ambos lados del Atlántico. Louis era un mulato con un talento natural para el boxeo y sobre el que la población negra depositó todas sus esperanzas. Los dos se convirtieron (a su pesar) en símbolos de dos países y dos regímenes políticos: la Alemania nazi y la democracia estadounidense. Sus combates se retransmitieron en directo a todo el mundo y los escucharon millones de personas.

Aunque no te guste el boxeo este es un libro muy recomendable para entender no solo este deporte sino la convulsa década de los años 30.

[Mark Cubillos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly researched and telling of one of the most important sporting events in history. The fight between Louis and Schmeling has been lost to history to most people outside of boxing fans and historians.

The second fight was billed the “Fight of the Century” and with the looming background of WW2, it has all the drama of great cinematic film. Joe Louis, the man who saved boxing, carried the weight of nation on his shoulders and also the psychological disadvantage of a previous loss. Max Schmeling had the backing of the Nazi propaganda machine and shocked everyone with beating the up and coming Louis. The rematch became American Exceptionalism vs. Aryan Supremacy, two men fighting for a title but also symbolic fight of ideology.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. A fascinating, if at times tedious, book of a sports story I previously knew nothing about. The way the boxing matchup weaves together with the opening salvos of WWII was particularly interesting. Like many books of its ilk, it suffers from too many quotes in support of a paragraph and consequently stifles the authors analytical voice. But still, an easy read and quite entertaining. Briefly made me a boxing fan. I say briefly because, when I go to look for boxing like this, I can only locate it in the past.

[Mfaiella2 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Certainty a detailed and well-researched account. Great job capturing the mood from nearly every conceivable angle; maybe a bit too long if I’m honest. Biggest criticism is that it seems to buy into the Joe Louis clean image and only hints at something else, rather than really getting at who he was.

[Will G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book about a period of time in the sports world i didn't know much about. So much was going on while this rivalry was unfolding during the run up to WWII. I learned a lot in this detailed history.

[Steph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well researched, but not always an easy read because it spends a lot of space detailing the atmosphere around fights through contemporary newspaper quotes. Gives an incredible insight into the circumstances around the two legendary bouts between Louis and Schmeling.

[James Koenig · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book had too much detail for me. Multiple Newspaper accounts of the events of that era slowed the reading and my enjoyment of the book. I ended up skipping sections of the book for this reason. In short, the effort to read the book became tedious and dull.

[Emily D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting history on different points, but far too many unrelated sidebars to the actual theme. It dragged the whole thing down.

[Kelsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was SO good!

[Matthew McCauley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book! Thoroughly researched. Really brings you back in time to that era. As a huge boxing fan I’m so glad I read this book and learned the fascinating history behind this event.

[W. Ryan Melson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary read. The chapter on the fight itself made you feel like actually being there. A strong commentary on race in America that years later still has not changed.

[Anthony Summers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it. It she be turned into a movie. I've read a few Joe Louis books, this is as good as any

[Conroy Dylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic book. The books starts years before the Louis Schmeling fight and leads up to it in a way so that once you reach the fight you understand exactly what this fight meant. The author quotes people such as Langston Hueghs and Maya Angelo who talk about what louis meant to them as people growing up black in 1940s America. It gives background on louis with just the right frame of reference so you get a good sense of louis with out the author spending too much time on it. The same goes for schmelling.

This book has a slight tendency to drag on at times and I would have like to see more of Louis' dark side in the book. (like how he hit his wife) I also found the title to be a little misleading, the book is heavily about boxing and not so much about the Nazis. A more boxing focused tittle would prepare the reading for the detailed story of the two Schmelling-Louis fights. In the end this is one of the best boxing books I have read and it continues to be in my top three favorites.

[Len · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entertaining book, mainly about boxing in 1930s America and the rivalries for the world heavyweight championship, with remarks about the rise of National Socialism in Germany, anti-semitism, and whether Max Schmeling was a Nazi at heart or a wily businessman looking out for his own interests. It all culminates with the second bout between Louis and Schmeling for the world title and that poses a problem: how much is it possible to write about a fight that lasted about one minute and forty seconds? Mr Margolick stretches it all to a masterly 351 pages with twenty-seven pages to cover the fight itself. I know I'm nitpicking but on page 266 the author describes Schmeling at his camp in Speculator, New York: “The view from his cottage, of the mountains looming beyond a crystalline alpine lake, reminded him of his estate in Pomerania.” Well, erm, actually, no; Pomerania was on the south shore of the Baltic Sea, flat as a pancake, in fact you could play crown green bowls on it. That aside, this was a very enjoyable read.

[Steven Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

The world waited to watch the second Louis Schmeling fight possibly more than any boxing match since.

Louis was a black man in a nation that only tolerated black men, but he was on a meteoric rise to the most respected spot in sports.

Schmeling had a Jewish manager, which did not sit well with Hitler, but Hitler knew an idol when he saw one. Stylish, intelligent, but with his boxing career peaking, Schmeling was the ideal role model of the German man.

And both men lived at a time when the Heavyweight division was dull. Forget the whole "Cinderella Man" story, the heavyweight division was a drag. Louis fell asleep as he watched J.J. Braddock win the title from Max Baer.

Then Louis, the rising contender, had his first fight with Schmeling and the German won!

This book captures it all. The drama, the history, the tensions, and the wonderful post story.

Louis was undoubtedly the better fighter. Schmeling, I think, was the better man.

[Clay Kallam · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Beyond Glory" is a nice, long Harper's Magazine feature on the second fight between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling expanded into 351 pages of padding. Details such as the amount of money the city of Livermore CA bet on Max Baer, or quotes from the magazine of Germany's SS, are simply pointless, though David Margolick seems to feel that endless accretion of detail enhances rather than buries a narrative.

Though the racial/Nazi element in the fight was real, Margolick pounds it into the reader with the relentlessness of Joe Louis' attack on Max Schmeling in their second meeting. There's a very nice essay in "Beyond Glory," but not much more, especially as the climactic fight lasted 124 seconds of real time.

Read the Cliff Notes.

[Joe Rodeck · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a great 200 page book inside these 351 long pages.

Way TMI. More time spent on the ugly process of the who, what, when, where, why, and how we will plan the next fight. Mind boggling anti-Nazism, anti-Semitism, and racism. And then less than 80 words about the Louis-Braddock championship fight. Lists of reporters present at the fights that only a 100-year old might recognize; not interesting research reportage.

On the bright side, there is frank and shocking descriptions of ring punishment; wonderful, cleverly droll sports quotes from the writing craftsmen of the day; and the characters of the boxers are well-limned.

[JmeDoom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hugely detailed, insightful work culled from thousands of press reports from the era right before WWII, during and after. The entire attitude towards race at that time is cataloged carefully from the pages of Nazi, Northern, Southern, Communist, and black Newspapers. The details of each fight are riveting and beautiful. Certainly this is a wonderful work of history, and a good example of how journalism today may be more "fair" and unemotional and impartial, but it is also more boring, less beautiful, and less important.

[John DiConsiglio · Rating 2 out of 5]

Flat-footed reportage of the '38 Louis/Schmeling fight. Some sharp jabs at the story’s vital contradiction: Louis, the son of an Alabama sharecropper, hailed as a hero in pre-civil rights America; the political naif Schmeling thrust into the ill-fitting role of Nazi superman. It’s more the biography of an event than the men at its center. Margolick’s gloves only come off in the ring scenes. An overreliance on newspaper accounts slows the pace.(Is it too much to ask for just one paragraph without a quote from the New York Star/Mirror/Telegraph/Tribune?) A split decision.

[J.C.]

I hate giving up on books when I have gotten past the half way point but in this particular instance, I am not feeling to guilty about quitting. Far to many sources sited, far to many b-stories that took away from the narrative, far to many places where the story gets lost or things are repeated. Why does every newspaper man and magazine feature writer need to site every source they discover when researching a book. I get it, you fact checked, now get on with the story.

[Ethan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little too much about the fight and not enough about the world, but very thorough explanation of the events leading up to June 22, 1938. The first fight is a little brushed over.

[Chuck Horton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic read about two of the all-time greats of the sport. I recommend this to anyone.

[Roy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read , nice pictures , appeal to any vintage boxing fan

[David Goode · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about one of three fights from the 20th Century that really could lay claim to being called the "Fight of the Century".The 2nd fight between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling was more than a sporting event.And everything you need to know about it can be found in this book.