Spirited, fast-paced, and rich in detail, Rocky Marciano: The Rock of His Times is the first book to tell the full story of the man, his sport, and his era. Emerging from obscurity to win the heavyweight crown in the early 1950s, Marciano fought until 1955, retiring with a perfect 49-0 record - a feat still unmatched today. Yet as much as he embodied the wholesome, rags-to-riches patriotism of a true American hero, Marciano also reflected the racial and ethnic tensions festering beneath the country's benevolent facade. In this captivating portrait of a complex American sports legend, Russell Sullivan confirms Rocky Marciano's place as a symbol and cultural icon of his era. Russell Sullivan lives in the Boston area and is senior vice president and general counsel of Linkage, Inc., a corporate education company headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of several books and articles on business-related topics. A volume in the series Sport and Society, edited by Benjamin G. Rader and Randy Roberts

Prizes

This is a book about the life, career, and impact of Rocky Marciano, the legendary heavyweight boxing champion who also stands as a powerful symbol of his times (the early 1950s, or "the Age of Simplicity")

Reviews

Sullivan, a business writer and owner of a corporate education company, offers a solid if unspectacular biography of the only undefeated heavyweight champion in history. He recounts Marciano's career from his first professional fight in 1947 through his death in a plane crash in 1969, looking at the sports hero as a symbol of both the optimism and the darker cultural currents of the 1950s. Sullivan provides a detailed and complete history of Marciano's fights, as well as some rich contextual background on the characters and atmosphere of boxing during the 1950s. Marciano, the child of Italian immigrants, who grew up in working class Brockton, Mass., was presented by the press as the ideal '50s man: a wholesome, patriotic family man with an all-American rags-to-riches story and worshipped by his fans as such. He was another Great White Hope in a sport dominated by black men, and though many 1950s sportswriters strove for a colorblind approach, it was nonetheless clear that they rooted for Rocky. The cultural analysis is the strongest part of the book; Russell's portrait of the private man (sometimes ambivalent about his family and notoriously obsessed with collecting and never spending money) is well researched and complex, but hampered by his often clunky and repetitive writing style. Though Marciano never achieved the popularity of Ali or Louis, his story offers a fascinating glimpse of boxing at midcentury and boxing buffs will be glad to have this overdue biography. (Sept.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Ask the average boxing fan who were the greatest heavyweight champions, and chances are that names such as Louis, Ali, and Dempsey will quickly pop up. Some who fancy themselves historians might chime in with Jack Johnson or even John L. Sullivan. Only after these choices will most people get around to Rocky Marciano, a plodding, many said clumsy, fighter willing to take ten blows to get in the big knockout punch of his own. But Rocky had one thing over all these guys he fought 49 pro fights and never lost, retiring as champion in 1956. In this biography, Sullivan, a Boston-area business writer, examines Marciano the fighter and Marciano the person, a man who symbolized his era as much as Ali did his. Along the way, Sullivan also offers excellent portraits of Marciano's nemeses Ezzard Charles, Jersey Joe Walcott, Archie Moore, and others and gives a sense of big-time boxing in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when the sport trailed only baseball in popularity. Essential for all boxing collections. Jim Burns, Jacksonville P.L., FL Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

"Russell Sullivan has given Rocky his fiftieth win." Bert Randolph Sugar, author of 100 Years of Boxing "[I]n the early '90s, Marciano started slipping from our short long-term memory. Enter his poet, Russell Sullivan ... Sullivan's book is not just a perfect paean to a pugilistic hero but also to a history of mid-century America as glimpsed from the corner window of what was then America's second most popular sport, professional boxing." Los Angeles Times "Russell Sullivan's revealing new biography ... will refresh those of a certain age about a boxing legend and initiate others into the full, entertaining story." Chicago Tribune "[T]he definitive Marciano biography." Booklist "When most boxing fans argue about the best heavyweight champions, they will continue to think of Louis, Ali, Dempsey, and Johnson. But they might consider putting Rocky Marciano up there on that level if they read Russell Sullivan's book." New York Times Book Review