First published 2024
Tracy Daugherty examines two cultural icons at pivotal moments in 1974. Muhammad Ali, thirty-two years old, trains in the Pennsylvania woods to reclaim his heavyweight title from George Foreman. The boxer wrestles with questions about his politics, career, and future while preparing for his comeback. Meanwhile, thirty-one-year-old George Harrison travels to India after the Beatles' breakup and his mother's death. His marriage crumbles as he seeks spiritual renewal in Varanasi, the sacred center of Hindu cosmology. Daugherty traces how both men first met in 1964 when fame beckoned, then simultaneously staged their returns a decade later. The author argues that their parallel journeys reveal the scope and boundaries of political courage and religious commitment in the modern era. This cultural history shows how Ali and Harrison carried the rebellious spirit and spiritual searching of the 1960s into a new decade marked by massive political, economic, and social upheaval.
Genres: biography, history, 20th-century, cultural
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: parallel-journeys, spiritual-quest
Setting: Pennsylvania, India, Varanasi
Period: 1964, 1974
504 pages · Hardcover · University of Oklahoma Press