From one of Europe's most prominent intellectuals: a brilliant, utterly original study of the boxing style of Muhammad Ali; of his rise, ascendancy, and fall as champion of the world; and of how Ali the man came to reflect many of our own deep, often disturbing, cultural patterns. This virtuoso essay takes as its narrative framework the legendary Ali vs. Joe Frazier fight in Manila in 1975, which Jan Philipp Reemtsma follows in three-round sections. Intercut with these vivid and telling accounts of what actually is going on (as opposed to what merely appears to be) are much wider ranging sections exploring the choreography (it is not too grand a word) that Ali crafted for his greatest title bouts, how he created a style that became its own myth, how he then came to have to act that style in the ring, and its damaging consequences. Reemtsma also provides portraits of Ali's opponents: Sonny Liston, George Foreman, Ken Norton, and, above all, Joe Frazier, the strongest "big puncher" of them all. He even produces a startling analysis of Sylvester Stallone's five Rocky movies to show how closely linked they are with the changing mythology of Ali, then opens up that myth so that we see how Ali the man and what he represents are connected with our own lives.

More Than a Champion: The Style of Muhammad Ali

Reemtsma, Jan Philipp

Biographies & Memoirs

KNOPF

"A dazzling portrait. . . . Written with energy, daring, and artful intelligence."  --San Francisco Chronicle

Community & Culture

Vintage

The limiting of violence through state powers is one of the central projects of the modern age. Why then have recent centuries been so bloody? In Trust and Violence, acclaimed German intellectual and public figure Jan Philipp Reemtsma demonstrates that the aim of decreasing and deterring violence has gone hand in hand with the misleading idea that violence is abnormal and beyond comprehension. We would be far better off, Reemtsma argues, if we acknowledged the disturbing fact that violence is normal. At the same time, Reemtsma contends that violence cannot be fully understood without delving into the concept of trust. Not in violence, but in trust, rests the foundation of true power.
 Reemtsma makes his case with a wide-ranging history of ideas about violence, from ancient philosophy through Shakespeare and Schiller to Michel Foucault, and by considering specific cases of extreme violence from medieval torture to the Holocaust and beyond. In the midst of this gloomy account of human tendencies, Reemtsma shrewdly observes that even dictators have to sleep at night and cannot rely on violence alone to ensure their safety. These authoritarian leaders must trust others while, by means other than violence, they must convince others to trust them. The history of violence is therefore a history of the peculiar relationship between violence and trust, and a recognition of trust's crucial place in humanity.
 A broad and insightful book that touches on philosophy, sociology, and political theory, Trust and Violence sheds new, and at times disquieting, light on two integral aspects of our society.

Trust and Violence: An Essay on a Modern Relationship

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Princeton University Press

Das unaufhebbare Nichtbescheidwissen der Mehrheit: Sechs Reden über Literatur und Kunst

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Beck C. H.

Das Buch vom Ich.

dtv.

Vertrauen und Gewalt: Versuch über eine besondere Konstellation der Moderne

Social Sciences

Hamburger Edition

Im Keller: Jan Philipp Reemtsma (German Edition)

Reference

Words, Language & Grammar

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Books by Reemtsma, Jan Philipp