I knew that Andrew Carnegie lived through the American Civil War, but I don't think I ever appreciated how important of a role in it. He was involved in organizing the Army of the Potomac's initial advance on Richmond, and he had a role in the War Department which resulted in frequent encounters with Abraham Lincoln. Not bad for a Scottish lad still in his mid-20s!

I'm really enjoying this book. Wall is a very insightful writer, and I'm finding his analysis of the contrast between young Andrew's politics and his world-view especially interesting.

Unfortunately the person I'm reading it with doesn't have the time to read that I do currently, so I need to slow my pace by alternating it with another book or two. Time to see what else in my TBR stack looks appealing right now!

This is a book I had long ago given up plans to read. When we went into (what passed for) lockdown, however, I liberated it from my book book and added it to my TBR stack, and I'm glad I did.

While Joseph Frazier Wall's book is a doorstop at over a thousand pages, it's proving a surprisingly quick read. It helps that I gave myself the liberty of skimming over the first fifty pages, which recount the Carnegies' background in Scotland and the conditions that led to their decision to emigrate to America in 1848. Now that the family has arrived in Pittsburgh (which Wall makes out to be a singularly miserable place), I plan on slowing down and absorbing fully the details of young Andrew's rise in the business world.

This is an interesting book, though as others have said, the last third is by far the best. Frazier, a white travel writer, befriends an Oglala Sioux man named Le from the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, and writes about his time hanging out with Le and his friends and family. He also writes more broadly about Native Americans today and about the last few centuries of history. The last third of the book is a biography of a basketball star named SuAnne Big Crow who was an inspiration for many before her tragic death as a teenager.

The content is interesting and Frazier’s writing is fine, but I do think he could have done more with the first two-thirds of the book. These chapters are often pretty diffuse, and he goes off on some weird tangents, like trying to hunt down every historically Native American bar in the country and chronicle their bar fights. Some of the broader information he provides is interesting, including some firsthand accounts of the American Indian Movement. But the first two-thirds was a bit of a drag overall.

I also wondered about the quality of Frazier’s information. At one point, in a brief discussion of eastern tribes, he mentions “the Lumbee of North Carolina, a tribe which has lived for a hundred years in the mountains around Lumberton unrecognized by anyone but themselves.” It’s cool that he mentioned the Lumbee, a group few Americans have heard of although they’re apparently the largest tribe east of the Mississippi, but basically everything in that sentence is wrong. Lumberton is nowhere near mountains – it’s in the flat coastal plain of eastern North Carolina – the Lumbee have been around for a lot longer than a hundred years, and the tribe gained state recognition in the 19th century, and a weird mostly-useless federal acknowledgment in 1956. (You can read more here or here). As always, when an author messes up the things you know, you have to wonder at the accuracy of the things you don’t.

All that said, SuAnne Big Crow’s story is really fantastic, and it’s worth reading the book for that part alone. Frazier is on much surer footing here with a narrative to follow and many people who knew SuAnne to contribute their memories, and I wish he’d spent more of the book on this type of writing and less on hanging out with Le.

At any rate, interesting book, and the author seems to be respectful and to view Native Americans as actual people rather than embodiments of stereotype, whether good or bad. He could have allocated his page count better, but it’s worth a read for those who are interested in the topic.

This book covers the basics, and when I say "basics", I mean the very hands up, chin down, eyes on your opponent and keeping the balance basics. So you’re for sure not going to be boxing like a Pro, but, I guess, you’ll be boxing after all, if you want to.

The fact that I enjoyed this one quite a bit despite it being targeted at absolute (probably pre-first boxing class) beginners shows, how much fun it is to read. Besides offering some helpful training advice, it gives good and clear explanations on why you are doing certain things the way you do them. And let’s all be honest, you can never be too advanced to work on your technique or too experienced to freshen up the basics every now and then.
Smokin’ Joe also includes a brief, but solid history on the sport itself (up to the time shortly before Tyson bit off a part of Holyfield’s ear). I highly value the fact, that he respects and treats all the weight classes evenly, so you get a balanced view beyond the prestigious heavyweight class.

But with all due respect, I absolutely disagree with one thing he emphasises: getting in shape before joining a gym. I mean, of course, you need a basic fitness level just to survive a training session, but the level Joe Frazier suggests having before even starting to box is way too ambitious, unless you are serious about it and want to turn pro asap.
Does it help to get in shape beforehand? Yes, definitely. Is it necessary? Absolutely not.

It was nonetheless reassuring to read, that even an iconic and successful boxer like Smokin’ Joe got nervous before fights (I wish I had known that before my first round of sparring), but neither Box like the Pros, nor any other book on the subject substitute going to the gym and training with a coach. Fighting is simply nothing a book can teach you, but I guess, people mostly read it for the same reason I did: curiosity about Joe Frazier and what he has to say.