Author: Jack Cavanaugh File Type: epub Among the legendary athletes of the 1920s, the unquestioned halcyon days of sports, stands Gene Tunney, the boxer who upset Jack Dempsey in spectacular fashion, notched a 771 record as a prizefighter, and later avenged his sole setback (to a fearless and highly unorthodox fighter named Harry Greb). Yet within a few years of retiring from the ring, Tunney willingly receded into the background, renouncing the image of jock celebrity that became the stock in trade of so many of his contemporaries. To this day, Gene Tunneys name is most often recognized only in conjunction with his epic long count second bout with Dempsey. In Tunney, the veteran journalist and author Jack Cavanaugh gives an account of the incomparable sporting milieu of the Roaring Twenties, centered around Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey, the gladiators whose two titanic clashes transfixed a nation. Cavanaugh traces Tunneys life and career, taking us from the mean streets of Tunneys native Greenwich Village to the Greenwich, Connecticut, home of his only love, the heiress Polly Lauder from Parris Island to Yale University from Tunney learning fisticuffs as a skinny kid at the knee of his longshoreman father to his reign atop boxings glamorous heavyweight division. Gene Tunney defied easy categorization, as a fighter and as a person. He was a sex symbol, a master of defensive boxing strategy, and the possessor of a powerful, and occasionally showy, intellectqualities that prompted the great sportswriters of the golden age of sports to portray Tunney as aloof. This intelligence would later serve him well in the corporate world, as CEO of several major companies and as a patron of the arts. And while the public craved reports of bad blood between Tunney and Dempsey, the pair were, in reality, respectful ring adversaries who in retirement grew to share a sincere lifelong friendshipwith Dempsey even stumping for Tunneys son, John, during the younger Tunneys successful run for Congress. Tunney offers a unique perspective on sports, celebrity, and popular culture in the 1920s. But more than an exciting and insightful real-life tale, replete with heads of state, irrepressible showmen, mobsters, Hollywood luminaries, and the cream of New York society, Tunney is an irresistible story of an American underdog who forever changed the way fans look at their heroes. From the Hardcover edition.**From Publishers WeeklyOn September 23, 1926, in Philadelphia, Gene Tunney easily defeated Jack Dempsey for the title of heavyweight champion of the world, and in this exhaustively researched work, sportswriter Cavanaugh makes an excellent case for Tunneys undervalued prowess as a fighter. Dempsey was the Mike Tyson of his era, and his beating at the hands of the defense-minded, Shakespeare-quoting Tunney shocked the boxing cognoscenti. Exactly 364 days later, Tunney beat Dempsey again in the famous Long-Count match, one of the most controversial in the history of the sport. The two fights, vividly recounted by Cavanaugh, marked a pinnacle of popular success for boxing (which in the preceding decades had been illegal in much of the country), drew the largest crowds of any sporting event at that time and made the principals the most highly paid athletes in the world. Ironically, the losses only increased the popularity of Dempsey, who until then faced accusations of being a greedy draft dodger. In victory, however, Tunney proved to be an unpopular champion both with sportswriters and the American public, who like their heroes more common-minded. After successfully defending his title once more, Tunney took his millions, married an heiress and settled down in Greenwich, Conn. Cavanaugh brings alive an era when boxers fought more in a year than they do now over entire careers. (Nov.) Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. From Booklist Boxing has long been an attractive subject for many of the best American writers, but one of the challenges boxing biographers face is that boxers, as a rule, dont tend to be all that intellectually engaging. People like Sonny Liston and Max Baer might tell us something interesting about the human condition, but they didnt quote much Shakespeare. Gene Tunney, though, was truly a thinking mans champ, and thats part of what makes this biography so fascinating. Tunneys life story starts out like that of many boxers he grew up poor in a neighborhood (Greenwich Village) that valued physical strength over smarts. But by the time he stunned the world by defeating Jack Dempsey, he was a full-blown, poetry-quoting intellectual. Cavanaugh argues convincingly that Tunneys nonmacho interests and defensive style led to his being underrated by opponents and sportswriters alike. This immensely well-researched biography finally gives Tunney his full due. But better still, Cavanaugh vividly describes life and sport in the Dempsey-Tunney era, doing for the 1920s what David Margolicks Beyond Glory (2005) did for the 1930s. John Green American Library Association. lt

Author: Michael Grant File Type: pdf This set comprises 40 volumes covering nineteenth and twentieth century European and American authors. These volumes will be available as a complete set, mini boxed sets (by theme) or as individual volumes. This second set compliments the first 68 volume set of *Critical Heritage * published by Routledge in October 1995.**