What do you think?
Rate this book
Brothers of Iron: Building the Weider Empire
In the depths of the Great Depression a scrawny, dirt-poor Jewish kid with a seventh-grade education picked up a barbell and got hooked on weight training. Building his muscles gave him confidence and hope for a better life. He pledged to make the great, transforming power of strength training available to everyone and to give bodybuilding all the glory it deserved. The kid, Joe Weider, enlisted his younger brother Ben in his quest, and together the Weider brothers accomplished things much bigger than Joe's boyhood dreams. The little muscle magazine Joe started, working at his family's dining room table, grew into a publishing empire. From a backyard barbell business, Joe and Ben built equipment and food supplement companies each as big as Weider Publishing. And they transformed bodybuilding into a hugely successful sport, organized under one of the largest and best-run athletic federations in the world. The Weider brothers are heroes to bodybuilders and fans all over the world.
305 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2006
1 person is currently reading
51 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 9, 2014
This book is about the story of two brothers who made a successful business selling barbells and muscle magazines. Along the way, they promoted bodybuilding as an international sport and helped Arnold Schwarzenegger get started in America.
The book, like a lot of books of this type, starts out pretty strong and tells a linear story, but then kind of fades out. Weider understands that people primarily read the first few pages of a book before buying, so half of this book is disjointed filler, the second half mainly.
The book offends the sensibilities at times. In one sentence, Joe will allude to his humble nature, but in the next, he will compare himself to Alexander The Great. There doesn't seem to be any sense of how inappropriate this is.
My theory is Joe Weider's early magazines were a hit because at that time closeted homosexual men had little recourse to pornography. He tapped into a niche market left neglected.
Joe protests too much about the reality that bodybuilding was in many ways a homosexual thing in its early endeavor, and probably still is, especially women's bodybuilding. I found this to be disingenuous, since he was disassociating himself from the people who supported him in the early days.
I bought Arnold's book, TOTAL RECALL, in a bargain bin while shopping and made the mistake of mentioning it favorably to a relative at a Christmas Party. The next thing you know, I am lent a copy of Joe Weider's book, as I am now branded as a fan of this genre. Arnold's book does fascinate, and Weider's book relates the Arnold story from a different perspective.
I don't recall ever seeing the word "steroids" in this book, though I'm sure it must be in there somewhere. Joe also cheapens himself by waxing petulant over Arnold's supposed lack of gratitude to him. Arnold apparently threw Joe under the bus at one point in the interest of "myth-making", Arnold-style, on the Johnny Carson show. This wasn't personal, I don't think, just business.
Still, you have to give it up for a couple of crazy, mixed-up kids who made it on the thunder road of selling a dream--the dream of becoming like Arnold. Even Arnold admits he read Joe's magazines and invented Arnold in his mind, and then became that Arnold. The whole story is pretty cool, actually, and in some sense, inspirational. One just wishes Joe had not been so into myth-making in his own right.
The book, like a lot of books of this type, starts out pretty strong and tells a linear story, but then kind of fades out. Weider understands that people primarily read the first few pages of a book before buying, so half of this book is disjointed filler, the second half mainly.
The book offends the sensibilities at times. In one sentence, Joe will allude to his humble nature, but in the next, he will compare himself to Alexander The Great. There doesn't seem to be any sense of how inappropriate this is.
My theory is Joe Weider's early magazines were a hit because at that time closeted homosexual men had little recourse to pornography. He tapped into a niche market left neglected.
Joe protests too much about the reality that bodybuilding was in many ways a homosexual thing in its early endeavor, and probably still is, especially women's bodybuilding. I found this to be disingenuous, since he was disassociating himself from the people who supported him in the early days.
I bought Arnold's book, TOTAL RECALL, in a bargain bin while shopping and made the mistake of mentioning it favorably to a relative at a Christmas Party. The next thing you know, I am lent a copy of Joe Weider's book, as I am now branded as a fan of this genre. Arnold's book does fascinate, and Weider's book relates the Arnold story from a different perspective.
I don't recall ever seeing the word "steroids" in this book, though I'm sure it must be in there somewhere. Joe also cheapens himself by waxing petulant over Arnold's supposed lack of gratitude to him. Arnold apparently threw Joe under the bus at one point in the interest of "myth-making", Arnold-style, on the Johnny Carson show. This wasn't personal, I don't think, just business.
Still, you have to give it up for a couple of crazy, mixed-up kids who made it on the thunder road of selling a dream--the dream of becoming like Arnold. Even Arnold admits he read Joe's magazines and invented Arnold in his mind, and then became that Arnold. The whole story is pretty cool, actually, and in some sense, inspirational. One just wishes Joe had not been so into myth-making in his own right.
September 19, 2007
Wary of the Weider ego, I hoped to at least get a bit of insight to the beginning and rise of bodybuilding. Instead, I learned how the world owes Joe Weider. At least that is the message I got. Most chapters are by Joe with a couple written by Ben whose input is on his goal to get bodybuilding recognized by the International Olympic Committee. I may be a cynic but I don't believe Joe did not know his first Mr. Olympia took steroids and that Ben really convinced the IOC to believe amateur bodybuilding is clean. They take a good stab at it though.
July 12, 2009
The Weider brothers, Joe & Ben, take turns in this autobiography explaining how they overcame humble beginnings to help turn bodybuilding into an internationally accepted and respected sport.
February 7, 2012
Their history crossed my own, that is why their book was of interest to me. Their account is too self galvanizing. Fact remains that they were a team to be reckoned with.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews