Muhammad Ali has attained mythical stature in American life. But in recent years Ali has been subjected to an image makeover by corporate America as it seeks to homogenize the electrifying nature of his persona. Thomas Hauser, author of the definitive Ali biography Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times, argues that there has been a deliberate distortion of what Ali believed, said, and stood for, and that making Ali more presentable for ad agencies by sanitizing his legacy is a disservice to history and to Ali himself. Ali was a great man with many faults. Rather than cultivate historical amnesia, Hauser contends the legacy of Ali as a man who used his fame to denounce war and inequality should be cherished, not lost to revisionism.

Thomas Hauser, whose boxing prose has been called "incomparable and indispensable" by The New York Times, is the author of 30 books, including his definitive biography Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times, and The Execution of Charles Horman, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He lives in New York.

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Also by Thomas Hauser:

• Knockout! The Nightmares and Dreams of Vikki LaMotta
  
• I Don't Believe It, But It's True: Another Remarkable Year In Boxing
  
• Chaos, Corruption, Courage and Glory
  
• The View From Ringside
  
• The Italian Stallions