Ring of Hate; Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling: The Fight of the Century

New York: Arcade Publishing, 2005. First U.S. Edition [stated]. First printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xiii, [3], 246 pages. Illustrations. Appendices. Bibliography. Index. Patrick Myler is a writer and boxing historian, whose previous books on the sport include Gentleman Jim Corbett and A Century of Boxing Greats . His articles have appeared in The Ring , Boxing News , and Boxing Monthly. He is also a Dublin historian, author of The Fighting Irish: Ireland's role in world boxing history and A Century of Boxing Greats, amongst others. He worked as a journalist in England before taking the post of chief sub-editor of the Sunday News in Belfast. On returning to his native Dublin, he served as chief sub-editor and then as an assistant editor of the Evening Herald for thirty years. He wrote a weekly boxing column for that paper. The definitive book on one of the greatest sports events of the twentieth century, the heavyweight championship bout between Germany's Max Schmeling and America's "Brown Bomber," Joe Louis. More than the world heavyweight championship was at stake when Joe Louis fought Max Schmeling on June 22, 1938. In a world on the brink of war, the fight was depicted as a contest between nations, races, and political ideologies, the symbol of a much vaster struggle. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels boasted that the Aryan Schmeling would crush his "inferior" black opponent. President Roosevelt told Louis, his guest at the White House, that "America needs muscles like yours to beat Germany." For Louis, this was also his chance to avenge the only loss in his brilliant career-by a knockout-to the same Max Schmeling two years earlier. Recreating the drama of their momentous bout, the author traces the lives of both fighters before and after the fight, including Schmeling's efforts in Nazi Germany to protect Jewish friends and the two boxers' surprising friendship in the postwar years. In Ring of Hate Myler tells the story of two decent men, drawn together by boxing and divided by the cruel demands of competing nations.