There have been mythic sports figures just before Cassius Clay, however when he burst upon the sports picture in the 1950s, he broke the mold. Those had been the years when boxing and boxers had been susceptible to the mob and the whim from the sportswriters. If you wanted a go at a title, you did it their way. Young Clay achieved it his way – with little more than an Olympic silver medal to his credit, he danced into Sonny Liston’s baleful look at and provoked the terrifying champ into taking him as his following challenger. The rest is background. Muhammad Ali has turned into a mythic hero, an American icon, a self-invented legend. As both a reflection and a molder of his times, Ali became one of the most recognizable encounter on the planet, a key body in the cultural battles of the times. This is actually the story of his self-creation, and his rise to glory, informed by a master storyteller.