“For those who have long admired Ashe, this close look at his life offers even more evidence that he was more than a great player, he was an extraordinary person. . . .
Arthur Ashe: A Life is among the best books about tennis I’ve ever read — it’s a deep, detailed, thoughtful chronicle of one of the country’s best and most important players.”
— Touré
"[A] wide-ranging, massively researched and thoroughly absorbing biography."
— Gene Seymour
“A thoroughly captivating biography. . . . With great dexterity, Arsenault juxtaposes Ashe’s tennis journey with touchstone moments of the ’60s. . . . As this book eloquently reveals, one can only wonder and shed at least one tear for what more [Ashe] might have accomplished.”
— Joel Drucker
“An insightful narrative of the evolution of a remarkable human being.”
— Michael Grunwald
"Finally a thorough and thoughtful biography of the committed activist and tennis champion. It’s the book this most admirable man deserves."
— Bill Littlefield
“An important interpretation of Ashe’s legacy and accomplishments, not just on the UCLA tennis courts but also with the deeds that defined him later.”
— Tom Hoffarth
"Raymond Arsenault's magisterial biography of Arthur Ashe reconstructs the life of a true gentleman and scholar-athlete, a champion on and off the court who became one of the most admirable figures in the history of sports."
— Ambassador Andrew Young
“Masterful. . . . Arsenault's effort to document Ashe's full life in one volume is commendable and will serve as the standard work on Ashe for some time.”
— Library Journal (starred review)
“Written gracefully by historian Raymond Arsenault. . . . This biography is a laudable achievement. Arsenault moves seamlessly between sports and social history, marking time with tennis competitions and civil-rights milestones.”
— David Takami
“No modern athlete, with the exception of Muhammad Ali, has altered our cultural and political landscape as fully as Arthur Ashe. . . . Rarely has the story of a life and its times been threaded together so elegantly. A marvelous read.”
— David M. Oshinsky, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Polio: An American Story
“This lovingly researched biography of Arthur Ashe is of such high quality that it deserves a place on the shelf alongside the highly-regarded works of Ashe himself.”
— Peter Bodo, ESPN Tennis
“Arthur Ashe – athlete and activist of international renown – has the biography and biographer he so richly earned. The distinguished historian Raymond Arsenault illuminates an extraordinary life of courage, triumph, and heartbreak with riveting prose, deep understanding, and great sensitivity.”
— Steven Hahn, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration
"Inspiring. . . . Arsenault’s narrative is well-researched and exciting in a few on-court showdowns and political confrontations. . . . Readers will find [Ashe's] saga admirable."
— Publishers Weekly
“Arsenault’s Ashe is too large a character to be contained in a mere sport. . . . Ashe was always aware of his status as a trailblazer in the white world of tennis, an awareness that helped inform the dignity with which he famously carried himself as a player and as an outspoken black activist and public intellectual. Arsenault renders this aspect of the story exquisitely, moving smoothly between tennis and politics and Ashe’s ongoing efforts to determine and articulate his positions with respect to the important issues of his time.”
— Scott F. Parker
“An important interpretation of Ashe’s legacy and accomplishments, not just on the UCLA tennis courts but also with the deeds that defined him later.”
— Tom Hoffarth
