Customer Reviews

Body & Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer

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Having searched and read close to what I can find on the subject featured in this book, I can honestly say that it covers close to everything I was looking for. It is well written, a page-turner (which I rarely find a "scientific" book to be), in depth, and has a nice personal touch. Wacquant shows great understanding for the sport, as well as the interpersonal and mystified aspects of the gym, and is able to put this together in sociological terms and aspects. I have myself traveled around the world, and in several major cities (and small towns) visited different gyms with the purpose of training. But also because I am interested in the differences of the gyms and the poeple there. I can relate to Woodlawn Boys Club because I spent a few weeks in Minnapolis, and frequented a "similar" kind of gym there, and I find great interest in reading about his findings in "his" gym. One of the main reasons I read - and liked - this book, is my search for validating boxing as professional youth work, and I discovered many findings, which can also be applied in my small country, which is totally different when it comes to the urban life. The principles are nevertheless the same. So for every person interested in boxing, youth work or/and the mystique surrounding the sport and the gym (as a phenomena) this is a must. Or if you merely want interesting reading from a modern and gutsy sociologist, you will probably like it as well. Enjoy!

I had Professor Wacquant for one of my classes and I have to say he is an excellent professor who has amazing ideas about today's society. In this book, he argues against the mainstream idea of the underclass and he also explains how the boxing gym is a force in opposition to the forces of the ghetto. Very well written, the book is a very good read. It has been very interesting for me, as I am studying sociology as a college student and I box in my spare time.

This is a brilliantly structured, engrossing book. Wacquant interweaves the immediacy of his notebooks written at the time with sociological analysis which is always apposite and adds insight to the closely described reality. After a few pages we are sharing his captivation with the characters and society he is describing, eager to find out what happens next.

You don't need to have a prior interest in boxing to find this book fascinating.

Put simply: if you want to get a decent look at the inner-city boxing phenomenon, buy this. But if you are in academia, be warned: Wacquant is far from the detached observer he swears he is. A good example of what NOT to do in ethnographic research.