The longest fight

In The longest fight, the longtime Washington Post correspondent William Gildea tells the story of the longest boxing match of the twentieth century-- between Joe Gans , the first African American boxing champion, and "Battling" Nelson, a vicious and dirty brawler-- which would stretch to forty-two rounds and last two hours and forty-eight minutes. An new rail line brought spectators from around the country, dozens of reporters came to file blow-by-blow accounts, and an entrepreneurial crew's film of the fight, shown in theaters shortly afterward, endures to this day. The longest fight also recounts something much greater-- the longer battle that Gans fought against prejudice as the premier black athlete of his time. It is a portrait of life in black America at the turn of the twentieth century, of what it was like to be the first black athlete to successfully cross the nation's gaping racial divide. Gans was smart, witty, trim, and handsome-- with one-punch knockout power and groundbreaking defensive skills-- and his courage despite discrimination prefigures the strife faced by many of America's finest athletes, including Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, and Muhammad Ali.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.