Shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing
A physical and philosophical mediation on why we are drawn to fight
each other for sport, what happens to our bodies and brains when we
do, and what it all means Anyone with guts or madness in him can
get hit by someone who knows how; it takes a different kind of
madness, a more persistent kind, to stick around long enough to be
one of the people who does the knowing. Josh Rosenblatt was
thirty-three years old when he first realized he wanted to fight. A
lifelong pacifist with a philosopher's hatred of violence and a
dandy's aversion to exercise, he drank to excess, smoked
passionately, ate indifferently, and mocked physical activity that
didn't involve nudity. But deep down inside there was always some
part of him that was attracted to the idea of fighting. So, after
studying Muay Thai, Krav Maga, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and boxing, he
decided, at age forty, that it was finally time to fight his
first-and only-mixed martial arts match: all in the name of
experience and transcending ancient fears. An insightful and moving
rumination on the nature of fighting, Why We Fight takes us on his
journey from the bleachers to the ring. Using his own training as
an opportunity to understand how the sport illuminates basic human
impulses, Rosenblatt weaves together cultural history, criticism,
biology, and anthropology to understand what happens to the human
body and mind when under attack, and to explore why he, a
self-described "cowardly boy from the suburbs," discovered so much
meaning in putting his body, and others', at risk. From the
psychology of fear to the physiology of pain, from Ukrainian
shtetls to Brooklyn boxing gyms, from Lord Byron to George
Plimpton, Why We Fight is a fierce inquiry into the abiding appeal
of our most conflicted and controversial fixation, interwoven with
a firsthand account of what happens when a mild-mannered
intellectual decides to step into the ring for his first real
showdown.
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