Body & Soul

It is a well-written, insightful and above all fascinating account which draws the reader in, combining sociological insight with good stories about strong characters. * The Sociological Review *
The combination of erudition and a sense of what it feels like to box are immediate characteristics of Wacquant's accessible and vibrant textual strategy. It's a sweet yet scientific style. * Thesis Eleven *
A compelling demonstration of a methodology that seeks to reveal the layers of the pugilistic habitus through the researcher's own experiences. * Theory & Psychology *
Body and Soul paints a multidimensional picture through prose that is captivating and poetic.... A compelling statement about ghetto life, sports, and male camaraderie * Symbolic Interactionism *
[R]eveals a remarkable ethnographic and theatrical eye... a model account of a personal, embodied sociology. * American Journal of Sociology *
Loic Wacquant's Body and Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer is perhaps the best yet sociology of the body—its theorizing is less explicit than is the acuteness of the observations...a provocative, exhilarating, maddening, and profoundly idiosyncratic effort. * Contemporary Sociology *
Body & Soul not only sets a new standard for scholarly research and writing on sport. It is a virtuoso performance that could--if properly read and disseminated and emulated--put the study of sport at the center of all sociological theorizing and analysis. * Social Forces *
[A] sociological tour de force...sure to be widely used as an exemplar of how to conduct participant observation research.... It is packed with fruitful conceptual and theoretical discussions. * Qualitative Sociology *
A fresh and authoritative treatment. * The Ring: The Bible of Boxing *
Body & Soul will pull you into the deep rhythms of boxing and should certainly earn a place in the canon of literature in the ring. * Los Angeles Times *
This remarkable and courageous book gives life to Pierre Bourdieu's adage that we 'learn by body: A Frenchman in Chicago sets out to learn about the black ghetto but not through detached observation: he joins the local gym and labors to become a boxer for whom, as for his buddies, 'fighting is my life, my woman, my love.' Though he yearns to become a pro, he never loses sight of the sociology in his quest. Bravo for sticking with science, for this book spells out a stunning lesson in the carnal sociology of where we are and what we are doing. * Jerome Bruner, author of Making Stories *
Body & Soul is a dazzling renewal of the endangered craft of narrative, participant sociology. Wacquant's taut rendering of the tension between the haven of the gym and the engulfing ghetto forms the backdrop for an absorbing exploration of the opposition between the manly discipline of the gym and the short, nasty brutalities of the ring. The result is a truly unique and powerful document that successfully translates the gritty routines and grim dignities of social existence without destroying or demeaning its subject. * Orlando Patterson, author of Rituals of Blood *
Body & Soul is a gem, destined for a life of classics like Street Corner Society (though much fleshier and juicier and denser), studied over and over again as a pattern to follow, though defying the ability, imagination, and, indeed, humanity of the would-be followers. An act impossible to match. A poem in prose, a work of love and wisdom rolled into one: this is how ethnography should be written, were the ethnographers capable of writing like that. * Zygmunt Bauman, author of Liquid Modernity *
A truly exceptional, even historic, piece of research. Brilliantly conceived, beautifully written. personally impassioned and, on multiple levels-sociological theory, social policy, ethnographic methodology-an inspiring book. It gives a bittersweet appreciation of what young black men born in 20th-century urban American ghettos might have become on a larger scale. were they given not an easier route but a more challenging, institutionally honored and indigenously supported rite of passage to adulthood. * Jack Katz, author of Seductions of Crime *
With a sociological imagination inspired by Bourdieu and writing that is electric, Wacquant brings to life the pain, sweat, and discipline of boxing, as well as the vivid language, small triumphs, and gritty masculine camaraderie of those who devote themselves to it in rundown gyms on Chicago's South Side. With respect and affection for those who mentored him, he takes us into a lifeworld that offers to some an alternative to the deadly streets of urban wastelands. * Lila Abu-Lughod, author of Veiled Sentiments *