These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.Įveryone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). They sharply detail Malcolm’s growing disillusionment with Elijah, his heartbreak at the loss of Ali’s allegiance, and the ugly dynamic within the Nation that left the defiant minister murdered.Ī page-turning tale from the 1960s about politics and sports and two proud, extraordinary men whose legacies endure. Backdropping the authors’ main tale are incisive looks at Ali’s showmanship, his almost single-handed resurrection of boxing, and the befuddlement of sportswriters confronted with his conversion. A Team for America: The Army-Navy Game that Rallied a Nation at War, 2011, etc.) and Smith (American History/Georgia Tech The Sons of Westwood: John Wooden, UCLA, and the Dynasty that Changed College Basketball, 2013, etc.) minutely examine the construction and tortured dissolution of this friendship, highlighting the influence of their fathers on their sensitive sons and the varying masks they adopted to navigate their worlds of prizefighting and politics. When Clay denounced his “slave name” and was anointed as Muhammad Ali, Malcolm understood he’d lost an intense power struggle with the Nation’s leader, Elijah Muhammad, and that it was only a matter of time before he’d be killed. Malcolm loved Clay and quickly understood his potential cultural impact and the glittering youth’s value as a propaganda tool for the sclerotic Nation. How else could Malcolm be so bold and remain alive? In the run-up to Clay’s historic upset of champion Sonny Liston, Malcolm filled the young boxer with confidence, privately advised him, supplied him with a business adviser, and shared many meals and moments of intimate family time. Malcolm’s incendiary rhetoric astonished Clay, who believed God protected him. Malcolm X, the Nation of Islam’s most visible minister and spokesman, confirmed the young Clay’s deep suspicions about the white man and wooed him for the Nation. These two titanic lives intersected for less than two years, with huge consequences for each man. An extraordinary narrative of love and deep affection, as well as deceit, betrayal, and violence, this story is a window into the public and private lives of two of our greatest national icons, and the tumultuous period in American history that they helped to shape.How Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali and then an enemy of his mentor and friend Malcolm X. Soon, however, their friendship would sour, with disastrous and far-reaching consequences.īased on previously untapped sources, from Malcolm's personal papers to FBI records, Blood Brothers is the first book to offer an in-depth portrait of this complex bond. Clay began living a double life-a patriotic "good negro" in public, and a radical reformer behind the scenes. The two became fast friends, keeping their interactions secret from the press for fear of jeopardizing Clay's career. But Malcolm X, the most famous minister in the Nation of Islam, saw the potential in Clay, not just for boxing greatness, but as a means of spreading the Nation's message. In 1962, boxing writers and fans considered Cassius Clay an obnoxious self-promoter, and few believed that he would become the heavyweight champion of the world.
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