Then until now, people come in droves to watch boxers pummel each other. Boxing aficionados marvel at the fighters’ quick punches and perfect footwork. They also typically love to analyze each fight, and witness in awe as these pugilists rise and fall in the ranks of boxing sports.

Kasia Boddy’s book, Boxing: A Cultural History, explores the deepest recesses of people’s minds as to why they love to see men fight and why people box in the first place. Boxing: A Cultural History also traces the origins and the roots of boxing. While modern-day boxing started in 18th century England, pure brawling dates back to the age of the Mesopotamian Empire. Boddy also takes the readers on an evolving journey, filling readers piece by piece as to how boxing became the sport it is today.

However, Boddy is not just a mere historian writing a simplified explanation of the what, the why and the who’s of boxing and how the sport came to be. Boxing: A Cultural History is filled with symbolisms and tackles sensitive topics, such as racism, poverty, and the exploitation of boxers.

Kasia Boddy’s Boxing: A Cultural History is a well-written and well-researched book by any standard. Award-winning author Peter Temple rates Boddy’s venture into the world of boxing as a writing that emanates an overall-quality so good that anybody can forgive Boddy’s lapses, if she has made any. Matthew Syed of The Times sees Boddy’s book as “one of the most intelligent sporting books of recent times, even if it consciously, and pleasingly, resists going for the knockout blow.”

Boxing: A Cultural History by Kasia Boddy is published by Reaktion Books.

• Kasia Boddy is a lecturer at UCL Department of English.
• Kasia Boddy’s article “Norman Mailer: A Boxing Life.”