Hope this is the right place.
it seems like everyone in my gym is a student of boxing history and lore. I took up boxing to hit people so I barely know anything about the history of the sport. I’d like to learn a bit more about it but the 2 different texts at the local B&N sucked.
Does anyone have some recommendations?
I might know one or two…
An Illustrated History of Boxing
Bare Fists: The History of Bare Knuckle Prize Fighting
And surprisingly, Ned Beaumont’s books on boxing for street-fighting have a lot of great history in them as well as good tips to work on for your techniques. They’re definitely worth a read IMO.
When you want something more highbrow check out:
It’s not an exhaustive history, but rather a collection of essays from an avid fan who happens to be a female intellectual.
(It should be noted that it was written before the entry of women into the sport and some of her statements will piss off female fighters.)
I’ll second the recommendation of Oates’ book, but note that women were actually fighting as professionals back in the 1800s and through to at least the '20s.
If you’re gonna go highbrow, don’t leave out AJ Liebling’s The Sweet Science.
I have only read one of the books on Koto-ryu’s list, but would second Bare Fists as a good book for the history of boxing.
The Sweet Science has some of the best writing I’ve seen ever, in anything, let alone just on boxing. For early history, Bare Fists is fine, but I’m more partial to Gorn’s The Manly Art for early American boxing. For the English side, I like Ford’s Prize Fighting.
I forgot about The Manly Art, good call. And women did fight earlier as DdlR was saying, you can actually read about the first in Boxing’s Strangest Fights I think.
Mr. Jason Couch,
Wow, with you and DDLR here, there can be some very interesting history discussions. Welcome.
I like the texts for the story behind the story, but I also like to wander through the boxing records sites.
Such as: Boxing Records
It has some interesting stats that seperate it from the MMA version of the same, such as the recent fight records for the opponent at the time of the fight, so if the guy is coming of a loosing streak you can understand the win better etc.
Mr. Cdnronin, good to see you as well, it’s been awhile. DdlR, I’ve been meaning to email you about the new Fairbairn bio.
Askari, I like boxrec too. One thing I’ve noticed is that in the last couple years they have really increased their coverage of some of the earlier, more obscure boxers (plus filling in some gaps that existed).
; - )
Slight thread drift, but I got my copy of the Fairbairn biography yesterday. Quite impressive, as expected… Back to your regularly scheduled discussion on boxing books.
Oh I’m good now. Feel free to discuss whatever you guys would like!
Thanks again.
DoD too, this is a regular reunion around here.
A quick correction, the book I was thinking of as a good Brit counterpoint to Gorn’s was Brailsford’s “Bareknuckles: A Social History of Prize Fighting.”
“Jack Johnson in the Ring and Out” is good.
Interesting MMA/boxing parallel: in the early days of boxing, lots of the fights went down in California. Today, of course we have MMA almost everywhere in the U.S., but the real Mecca is probably California.
Tommy Burns, Canada’s Unknown Heavyweight Boxing Champion by Dan McCaffery is an interesting look at turn of the century boxing, culminating with the famous Burns-Johnson fight in Australia.
Hmm…Canada’s one claim to fame and still talked about 100 years later 
I’ll have to check it out.
Albert, was that the Johnson autobiography? I looked at a handful of the bios when I did an article on the potential Johnson pardon http://ejmas.com/jcs/2005jcs/jcsart_couch_0405.html
If so, I remember enjoying reading it, but on a cautionary note, some of it was pretty self-serving once you compared it to other accounts. Although I guess that’s probably true of any autobiography.
An interesting book that I came across was Allen Bodner’s When Boxing Was a Jewish Sport (1997). It deals with the American boxing scene between the World Wars.
Definitely self-serving, but still good as far as a narrative. If you want something more objective “Papa Jack: Jack Johnson And The Era Of White Hopes” is probably better. I never got around to finishing it though.