'A treasure trove for boxing historians and aficionados ... At nearly five hundred densely packed pages ... Boxing: A Cultural History would seem to include everything that has ever been written, depicted or in any way recorded about boxing... To read Boddy's book is to confront dozens - hundreds? - of inspired mini-essays.' - Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Review of Books 'A serious yet entertaining study, packed with obscure facts and accompanied by a huge selection of marvellous photos and illustrations.' - Marcel Berlins, The Guardian 'The merit of Kasia Boddy's meticulously researched and deeply intelligent examination of boxing through the ages is that it refuses to take the pop historian's route of lazy simplification. The political and moral ambiguity of the fights that have played such a seminal role in shaping human consciousness are chronicled in all their rich and equivocal detail ... her volume is one of the most intelligent sporting books of recent times.' - The Times 'Boddy seldom misses a trick; her choices of what to include are invariably spot-on. Her subject is the interface between culture in its broadest sense and boxing, and the breadth and rigour of her research is astonishing ... she is just as sure-footed on the intricacies of boxing as in their depiction in literature, painting, film and television. She is clearly in love with the sport.' - Financial Times 'As Kasia Boddy shows in this epic study, packed with fine illustrations, the link between art and boxing stretches right back to the late Bronze Age ... if one author deserves real praise for stamina, it is Kasia Boddy. The research she has put into this book, combined with her awesome understanding of Western culture, is staggering. She can write with authority about everything from classical Rome to the Dada movement of the 1920s, from the work of George Bernard Shaw to Samuel Pepys' diary ... her book is a magnificent achievement.' - Sunday Telegraph

Kasia Boddy is Lecturer in the Department of English, University College London and has contributed to American Bodies: Cultural Histories of the Physique, ed. Tim Armstrong (1996) and Voyages and Visions, ed. Denis Cosgrove (1999).