The Battle of the Century: Dempsey, Carpentier, and the Birth of Modern Promotion (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780313382444)

This exciting account of the 1921 heavyweight boxing title fight between champion Jack Dempsey and Frenchman Georges Carpentier relates how it originated and how it became a template for modern sports promotion.

Immortalized as the battle of the century by Ring Lardner, the Dempsey-Carpentier heavyweight title bout marked America's first experience with the intersection of show business, high society, politics, and the underworld at a single sporting event. The Battle of the Century: Dempsey, Carpentier, and the Birth of Modern Promotion offers the definitive history of this landmark event's genesis and impact.

To explain why the fight had such a far-reaching influence on mass entertainment and modern culture, newspaperman Jim Waltzer invites readers to travel the path to the 1921 heavyweight championship. Along the way, they will meet a cast of outsize characters, including the savage defending champion (and alleged World War I slacker) Jack Dempsey, French pretty-boy war hero Georges Carpentier, promoter Tex Rickard, Dempsey's slippery manager Doc Kearns, and Jersey City boss Frank Hague. As the tale unfolds, so does an understanding of the forces that shaped the Roaring Twenties and established promotional hype as the MO of business.

Author: Jim Waltzer
ISBN-10: 0313382441
ISBN-13: 9780313382444
Publisher: Praeger
Language: English
Published: 05/04/2011
Pages: 264
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.25lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.10w x 1.10d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 11/01/2011
Reference and Research Bk News 08/01/2011 pg. 54