David Margolick is a long-time contributing editor at Vanity Fair. He has held similar posts at Newsweek and Portfolio. For fifteen years he was a legal affairs correspondent for the New York Times. He is one of my favorite writers. Beyond Glory, published in 2005, is Margolick at his best.
Few sporting events aroused more passion than the heavyweight boxing fights in the 1920s and 1930s. The 1936 and 1938 bouts between Joe Louis, a black American, and Max Schmeling, a hero of Nazi Germany, were no exception. Those fights, perhaps more than any others, had more meaning outside the ring than inside because they symbolized the hopes, hatreds, and fears of a world moving toward total war. Schmeling beat Louis in 12 rounds in 1936. Louis repaid the favor in one round in 1938.
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