Sting Like a Bee is Muhammad Ali vs The USA. Ali retired at 39 years old and was sick for 35 years. From 1966-1971 he was discussed by pretty much everyone on the planet. Once the military draft came around, Ali's refusal to serve led to a legal battle. Since Ali was now Muslim, that means that there was no war unless it was declared by Allah. Ali was a conscientious objector and there was FBI involvement after his refusal. The majority of the book talks about this aspect of Ali's life, but there is some other stories about his life as well - like how he knocked out 2 of his mom's teeth at 6 months old! There are also a lot of excerpts throughout from interviews and other legal documents. I thought this was an interesting read because it was a different story that what you usually hear about Muhammad Ali and one that I did not know much about.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review, I was not otherwise compensated.

Focusing on a young Ali's legal fight against the draft Montville's title is especially informative for those whose image of Ali is of an older, Parkinson stricken Ali lighting the Atlanta Olympic Flame. Ali's legal battle also reveals interesting insight into the America judicial system. Sting Like a Bee is a well written story for both boxing fans and those interested in a 20th Century American icon.

When Muhammad Ali passed away last June, he was celebrated in a manner that few people – and even fewer athletes – have ever received. He was hailed as an icon and a hero, one of the most globally beloved figures of his generation.

Amidst all that adulation, it’s easy to forget that there was a time in this country that Ali was reviled, hated for many of the same reasons for which we loved him.

Author Leigh Montville has written a chronicle of that tumultuous time. “Sting Like a Bee: Muhammad Ali vs. the United States of America, 1966-71” tells the story of young Ali as he confronted the realities of Vietnam, challenging his draft eligibility and denouncing the war, potentially sacrificing his career along the way.

In the late 1960s, Muhammad Ali was a brash and brilliant boxer, the heavyweight champion of the world. He was quick in the ring and quick with a quip, but there was plenty amidst the pugilistic excellence and the verbal braggadocio that many found troubling. Ali’s relationship to the extremist Nation of Islam sect – led by Elijah Muhammad – was one of the biggest; he even changed his name from Cassius Clay in order to better connect with the NOI.

But his relationship with his country truly soured in 1966, when he refused to join the military after being drafted. From that act of defiance spun numerous consequences. Ali was soon entrenched in a protracted legal fight, one in which he argued that his religion forbade his participation in a war. Those legal battles led the country’s numerous boxing commissions to withdraw his licenses, remove his titles and effectively ban him from the sport. Both sides saw civil rights ramifications as well.

Through it all, Ali acted as the flawed human he was rather than the flawless idea we remember him to be. He struggled with his faith, striving to find purpose without the sport that had been his life since childhood. He struggled financially and emotionally, professionally and personally – all while never knowing if the next court case would result in Ali getting his life back or losing a chunk of it to the penal system.

It’s remarkable to think that someone who has been written about as extensively as Muhammad Ali might have an underexplored aspect to their history, and yet here we are. This period – the dark time when the shadow of Vietnam loomed over everything Ali said or did – is one that hasn’t generated the same degree of coverage. Hindsight has significantly shifted the public’s perspectives on Ali’s actions – and not in a way that is particularly flattering to said public – so it’s no surprise that it doesn’t get as much attention.

In “Sting Like a Bee,” Montville has put together an exhaustively researched and deftly written account of that stretch. The portrait of Ali is rendered with rich, meticulous detail; it’s as thorough a portrait of the man he was in those years as you could ever hope to experience.

There were some dark moments for Ali during this time. Montville is unflinching in his recounting, but he is also unjudging; this is neither a puff piece nor a hit piece. Far from hagiography, it is simply a warts-and-all look.

There’s no doubt that Ali was a fascinating character; much of what made him fascinating – his athletic skill, his infectious energy, his wit and his faith – is brought into sharp focus by this book. It’s a bit cliché to say that you learn more about someone’s character when they’re being tested, but there’s no denying that “Sting Like a Bee” will give the reader a new appreciation for the difficulties of Ali’s journey.

“Sting Like a Bee” offers a long look at a trying time in the life of a nigh-mythic figure. Thanks to Montville, we can experience these years alongside Ali. And a moment is captured, a unique time in American history filtered through the prism of one man. The Greatest.

“’It takes a lot of nerve for somebody, mainly a white, to ask me do I hate. I haven’t lynched nobody and hid in the bushes.’”

I received an advance copy free from Net Galley and Doubleday in exchange for this honest review. The book is now available for purchase.

Muhammad Ali died of Parkinson’s disease one year ago. By the time of his passing, he had earned the respect and recognition he craved. In this popular biography, Montville gives an overview of his rise to fame, but focuses primarily on Ali’s legal challenge to the US government, which strove to draft him to fight in Vietnam despite his professed status as a conscientious objector.

During the 1960s and 1970s, almost all of Caucasian America and a goodly number of African-Americans regarded Ali’s public statements either with derision or fear. Born Cassius Clay, he joined the Nation of Islam as a young adult and changed his name in the same way Malcolm X had before him. He did it in order to shuck the slave name given him at birth and adopt a new religion that taught him that Black men were not only equal to white folks, but better. Malcolm X had advocated Black pride and scared a lot of people, but he had done it from the point of view of a political activist. Ali was the first Black athlete to stand up tall and tell all of America that he was the greatest. The descendants of slave owners that willingly or not bore the guilt of the oppressors were absolutely terrified. This was the fear they seldom made themselves face, the notion that the descendants of those so grievously wronged might rise up belatedly and give back some of what their ancestors had been dealt. I was there; I remember.

Ali personified the white man’s fear of the jungle. Dude, here he comes; he’s strong, he’s angry, and he’s free!

Montville recognizes up front that when Ali died, he was an icon, both as an athlete and as a civil rights advocate. But the tone of his prose shifts from a more or less neutral journalistic tone, to a wry one—because Ali did say some outrageous things by anyone’s standard—and then, again and again, to a derisive one. The first time I saw it, I told myself I was tired and grumpy, and that I was probably being overly sensitive. My own family is racially mixed; I have raised a Black son. Sometimes I get touchy when I read things written by white authors about Black people. I should put the book down and examine it tomorrow with fresh eyes.

When I picked it up the next time I was immediately taken with the writer’s skill. His pacing is impeccable. Some of the quotes he chose are really delicious ones, although with Ali, it’s also kind of hard to go wrong. And at this point I considered that since we were on a roll, I should take the next step and examine the end notes and documentation.

Huh. Apart from a list of sources, most of which are biographies written by other people, there’s nothing. There are the in-text references a popular biographer uses, telling us, for example, that a direct quote comes from the magazine Sports Illustrated, without telling us what issue or who wrote it. And to be fair, that’s how a popular biography is written. It’s there for the masses that love boxing and aren’t going to check your footnotes. Everything within my academic heart recoils at this kind of biography, but it sells. I may not like it much, but people will buy it and they’ll read it.

But to write about a legal challenge of this magnitude and not provide specific documentation?

I could mention this within a review—as I have—and say that given this particular caveat, the biography is a four star read, and I thought that I might do that. But when I continued reading, there it was again. The author makes fun of the guy. And so just before the halfway mark, I started making careful notes of my own, because I wanted to see for myself how it is possible for a writer to appear to be neutral much of the time and yet also mock his subject. What I came away with is that the more straight-forward, respectful material is buried in the middle of each section, but the briefer sneering, snide material is usually right at the end of the section in one sentence, set apart from everything that came before it.

Writers do this for emphasis.

Fans of Ali will have to swallow hard to make it through this biography. Fans of boxing will find that it’s mostly about the legal challenge, and although Ali’s boxing matches are included, you’ll find a lot more about those in any one of the numerous other Ali biographies published earlier. And those interested in his legal fight may want to hold out for a more scholarly treatment.

When all is said and done, Ali was the greatest, but this biography is not.

Ever since Leigh Montville stopped writing newspaper and magazine articles and started writing books, you can never tell what he's going to work on next. Let's see - there have been books on Babe Ruth, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Ted Williams, Evel Knievel, and Manute Bol among others.

This year, he's added another interesting choice to the list. Admittedly, forests could have been spared if Muhammad Ali hadn't come around when he did. All sorts of books have been written about him over the years. It's hard to turn away from his personality.

But this is different. Montville opts here to write about the time when he had an epic fight with the United States government over his draft status. That's a big part of the Ali legend at this point, but it's not a particularly well-known story. That's why "Sting Like a Bee" is a useful addition to the library.

For those of you too young to remember, Ali really did shock the work when he defeated Sonny Liston for the heavyweight boxing title in 1964. Then he did it again the next day by announcing that he had joined the Nation of Islam, a controversial Muslim group. Ali eventually changed his name from Cassius Clay. To say this all was unpopular would be a great understatement. Put it this way - most people thought the reputation of the boxing championship was tarnished - and Liston was known to be under the influence of organized crime. Plenty of people refused to call Ali by his new name; you'd think it would be easy to respect someone's personal wishes in this department.

Ali zipped through the heavyweight division's contenders, with his only roadblock being the draft board. After flunking an intelligence test, the military opted to reclassify several people by taking them into their ranks and giving them special training. Suddenly Ali was 1-A, and he claimed that his religion would not allow him to fight in Vietnam. Besides, Ali added, the Viet Cong had never discriminated against him. (His language was more colorful, but you get the idea.)

Montville gives the blow-by-blow account of the legal battle over Ali's status. There are a variety of stops and starts, but a key side issue was that Ali lost his boxing license once he refused induction - thus taking away his right to earn a living while he was fighting the case in court. It's a strange tale for the author - a book about a boxer without a heck of a lot of boxing along the way. Ali's journey almost is more of a legal expedition, as lawyers keep looking for a way for Ali to avoid military service.

The author makes a great point when he writes that as the Vietnam War became less and less popular, Ali's defiance became more and more mainstream. He eventually won his case to get his boxing license back, and fought a couple of times before the epic bout with Joe Frazier. Right after that, Ali won his case in the Supreme Court - and as Montville reminds us, he won it mostly because the Court Justices worked hard to find a legal loophole so that Ali wouldn't become a martyr in jail.

Montville did lots of reading about Ali and the Nation of Islam, and he sought out all sorts of people who played some sort of role in the story. The author even gets a lot of material from Ali's second wife, although some of it feels like it's from a different book in terms of content. Some of the twists and turns weren't particularly well publicized at the time, so it's good to catch up with it here.

There is one stumbling block here, and it's a good-sized one in terms of some readers' enjoyment of the story. There is plenty of legal stuff here, and it's quite dry. Montville includes quite a bit of legal testimony and documents verbatim, and it's hardly brisk reading. And that's an odd combination with Montville's wordy writing style, which can be a little tough to navigate if you aren't used to it. Ali certainly doesn't come off as a saint here either, mostly because of his wife's comments. That may not please the big fans, and disillusion others.

"Sting Like A Bee" is a good addition to the Ali library, filling in a literary gap. I'm just not sure it's going to work for everyone; I've read most of Montville's books (and loved him as a columnist) so I'm a little biased. If you are willing to put up with the lack of fun and excitement in a book about a fun and exciting public figure, dive in and receive an education.

Not only a biography of Ali but a study of a turbulent time in America. Concentrating on his legal battle because of religion and conscientious objector this book gives insight into the man people either loved or hated.