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The World's Fastest Man
- The Extraordinary Life of Cyclist Major Taylor, America's First Black Sports Hero
- Narrated by: David Sadzin
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
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Publisher's summary
In the tradition of The Boys in the Boat and Seabiscuit, a fascinating portrait of a groundbreaking but forgotten figure - the remarkable Major Taylor, the Black man who broke racial barriers by becoming the world’s fastest and most famous bicyclist at the height of the Jim Crow era.
In the 1890s, the nation’s promise of equality had failed spectacularly. While slavery had ended with the Civil War, the Jim Crow laws still separated Blacks from Whites, and the excesses of the Gilded Age created an elite upper class. Amid this world arrived Major Taylor, a young Black man who wanted to compete in the nation’s most popular and mostly White man’s sport, cycling. Birdie Munger, a White cyclist who once was the world’s fastest man, declared he could help turn the young Black athlete into a champion.
Twelve years before boxer Jack Johnson and 50 years before baseball player Jackie Robinson, Taylor faced racism at nearly every turn - especially by Whites who feared he would disprove their stereotypes of Blacks. In The World’s Fastest Man, years in the writing, investigative journalist Michael Kranish reveals new information about Major Taylor based on a rare interview with his daughter and other never-before-uncovered details from Taylor’s life. Kranish shows how Taylor indeed became a world champion, traveled the world, was the toast of Paris, and was one of the most chronicled Black men of his day.
From a moment in time just before the arrival of the automobile when bicycles were king, the populace was booming with immigrants, and enormous societal changes were about to take place, The World’s Fastest Man shines a light on a dramatic moment in American history - the gateway to the 20th century.
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Story
In the wake of the Tour de France’s fallen heroes, the story of one of history’s most legendary cyclists provides a much-needed antidote. In 1907 the world’s most popular athlete was not Cy Young or Ty Cobb. Rather, he was a black bicycle racer named "Major” Taylor. In his day, Taylor became a spiritual and athletic idol. He was the fastest man in America and a champion who prevailed over unspeakable cruelty. The men who aided him were among the most colorful to emerge from the era.
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Great book terrible narrator
- By B. P. H. on 10-31-18
By: Conrad Kerber, and others
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The Strenuous Life
- Theodore Roosevelt and the Making of the American Athlete
- By: Ryan Swanson
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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In full and intricate detail, featuring an amazing cast of characters from the worlds of politics, athletics, entertainment and more, this is the story of how President Theodore Roosevelt helped shepherd in a sports and fitness revolution that forever changed the complexion of the United States.
By: Ryan Swanson
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Lincoln on the Verge
- Thirteen Days to Washington
- By: Ted Widmer
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders, Ted Widmer
- Length: 16 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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As a divided nation plunges into the deepest crisis in its history, Abraham Lincoln boards a train for Washington and his inauguration - an inauguration Southerners have vowed to prevent by any means necessary. Drawing on new research, this account reveals the president-elect as a work in progress, showing him on the verge of greatness, foiling an assassination attempt, and forging an unbreakable bond with the American people.
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A perfect listen for our divided times.
- By Jonathan W White on 12-06-20
By: Ted Widmer
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Faster
- How a Jewish Driver, an American Heiress, and a Legendary Car Beat Hitler's Best
- By: Neal Bascomb
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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As Nazi Germany launched its campaign of racial terror and pushed the world toward war, three misfits banded together to challenge Hitler’s dominance at the apex of motorsport: the Grand Prix. Their quest for redemption culminated in a remarkable race that is still talked about in racing circles to this day - but which, soon after it ended, Hitler attempted to completely erase from history.
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Almost perfect, but lousy sound cuts and splicing
- By F. on 06-08-20
By: Neal Bascomb
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Supreme City
- How Jazz Age Manhattan Gave Birth to Modern America
- By: Donald L. Miller
- Narrated by: Frangione Jim
- Length: 29 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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In four words - "the capital of everything" - Duke Ellington captured Manhattan during one of the most exciting and celebrated eras in our history: The Jazz Age. Radio, tabloid newspapers, and movies with sound appeared. The silver screen took over Times Square as Broadway became America's movie mecca. Tremendous new skyscrapers were built in Midtown in one of the greatest building booms in history.
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the background to the NYC we now live in
- By Marcie on 03-05-15
By: Donald L. Miller
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Overground Railroad
- The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America
- By: Candacy Taylor
- Narrated by: Lisa Reneé Pitts
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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The first book to explore the historical role and residual impact of the Green Book, a travel guide for Black motorists.
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Narrator destroyed this for me! read it instead
- By purpleprose on 10-16-22
By: Candacy Taylor
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Triumph
- The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics
- By: Jeremy Schaap
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1936, against a backdrop of swastikas flying and storm troopers looming, an African-American son of sharecroppers set three world records and won an unprecedented four gold medals, single-handedly crushing Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy. The story of Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics Games is that of a high-profile athlete giving a performance that transcends sports. But it is also the intimate and complex tale of the courage of one remarkable man.
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race headwinds
- By Andy on 04-26-07
By: Jeremy Schaap
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Self Made
- Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker
- By: A'Lelia Bundles
- Narrated by: A'Lelia Bundles
- Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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The daughter of slaves, Madam C.J. Walker was orphaned at seven, married at 14, and widowed at 20. She spent the better part of the next two decades laboring as a washerwoman for $1.50 a week. Then - with the discovery of a revolutionary hair care formula for Black women - everything changed. By her death in 1919, Walker managed to overcome astonishing odds: Building a storied beauty empire from the ground up that would be run by four generations of Walker women until its sale in 1985.
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Please read the book and not rely on the Netflix series
- By Sweet Pea's Mommy on 04-27-20
By: A'Lelia Bundles
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One Summer
- America, 1927
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 17 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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One of the most admired nonfiction writers of our time retells the story of one truly fabulous year in the life of his native country - a fascinating and gripping narrative featuring such outsized American heroes as Charles Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, and yes Herbert Hoover, and a gallery of criminals (Al Capone), eccentrics (Shipwreck Kelly), and close-mouthed politicians (Calvin Coolidge). It was the year Americans attempted and accomplished outsized things and came of age in a big, brawling manner. What a country. What a summer. And what a writer to bring it all so vividly alive.
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Why 1927?
- By Mark on 10-18-13
By: Bill Bryson
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Sprinting Through No Man's Land
- Endurance, Tragedy, and Rebirth in the 1919 Tour de France
- By: Adin Dobkin
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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On June 29, 1919, one day after the Treaty of Versailles brought about the end of World War I, nearly seventy cyclists embarked on the thirteenth Tour de France. From Paris, the war-weary men rode down the western coast on a race that would trace the country’s border, through seaside towns and mountains to the ghostly western front. Traversing a cratered postwar landscape, the cyclists faced near-impossible odds and the psychological scars of war. Most of the athletes had arrived straight from the front, where so many fellow countrymen had suffered or died.
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Encyclopedia, Anyone?
- By Sheryl on 08-24-21
By: Adin Dobkin
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30 Days a Black Man
- The Forgotten Story That Exposed the Jim Crow South
- By: Bill Steigerwald, Juan Williams - foreword
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1948 most White people in the North had no idea how unjust and unequal daily life was for the 10 million African Americans living in the South. But that suddenly changed after Ray Sprigle, a famous White journalist from Pittsburgh, went undercover and lived as a Black man in the Jim Crow South. Escorted through the South's parallel Black society by John Wesley Dobbs, a historic Black civil rights pioneer from Atlanta, Sprigle met with sharecroppers, local Black leaders, and families of lynching victims.
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Review review
- By bill steigerwald on 12-13-20
By: Bill Steigerwald, and others
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Appetite for America
- Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West - One Meal at a Time
- By: Stephen Fried
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 18 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Appetite for America is the incredible real-life story of Fred Harvey - told in depth for the first time ever. As a young immigrant, Fred Harvey worked his way up from dishwasher to household name. With the verve and passion of Fred Harvey himself, Stephen Fried tells the story of how this visionary built his business from a single lunch counter into a family empire whose marketing and innovations we still encounter in myriad ways. Inspiring, instructive, and hugely entertaining, Appetite for America is historical biography that is as richly rewarding.
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I loved listening to this fabulous story!
- By A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. on 01-27-20
By: Stephen Fried
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Rome 1960
- The Olympics that Changed the World
- By: David Maraniss
- Narrated by: David Maraniss
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Abridged
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The athletes competing in the 1960 Rome Olympics included some of the most honored in Olympic history: decathlete Rafer Johnson, sprinter Wilma Rudolph, Ethiopian marathoner Abebe Bikila, and Louisville boxer Cassius Clay, who at 18 seized the world stage for the first time, four years before he became Muhammad Ali.
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Very Good Book
- By Jay on 07-30-08
By: David Maraniss
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Fins
- Harley Earl, the Rise of General Motors, and the Glory Days of Detroit
- By: William Knoedelseder
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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This audiobook chronicles the birth and rise to greatness of the American auto industry through the life of Harley Earl, an eccentric six-foot-five, stuttering visionary who dropped out of college and went on to invent the profession of automobile styling, thereby revolutionized the way cars were made, marketed, and even imagined. Harleys Earl’s story qualifies as a bona fide American family saga. It began in the Michigan pine forest in the years after the Civil War, traveled across the Great Plains on the wheels of a covered wagon, and eventually settled in Hollywood, California.
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Great report of amazing history but could do without the WOKE lean..
- By joshua Shaw on 07-02-22
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The Three-Year Swim Club
- The Untold Story of Maui's Sugar Ditch Kids and Their Quest for Olympic Glory
- By: Julie Checkoway
- Narrated by: Alex Chadwick
- Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1937, a schoolteacher on the island of Maui challenged a group of poverty-stricken sugar plantation kids to swim upstream against the current of their circumstance. The goal? To become Olympians. They faced seemingly insurmountable obstacles. The children were Japanese-American, were malnourished and barefoot, and had no pool; they trained in the filthy irrigation ditches that snaked down from the mountains into the sugarcane fields.
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Great story but the Hawaiian words get slaughtered
- By Arabella on 01-26-16
By: Julie Checkoway
What listeners say about The World's Fastest Man
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- CB
- 06-21-24
Great story rarely told!
Loved the detail and inside perspective on Taylor’s life: a great read for all ages.
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- Tomazulob
- 06-18-20
Important Look at Conquering Racism in a Pyrrhic Way
Major Taylor’s story of his climb to the top of the professional bicycle tours of the world while being forced to encounter horrific racism is both exciting and heartbreaking. This is a glimpse at the turn of the century in the US and in the world. His strength laid in his relentless training and in his religion. Unfortunately for him, the inherent racism of his home city of Indianapolis, his country, and the European continent beat him down badly. This is an important book for this time.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Big Sarge
- 07-08-22
Major Taylor
Truly inspiring life story in a time where I thought to be Black and great was impossible. Another rich classic of overcoming the many hurdles of prejudice and oppression.
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- Leo
- 07-29-19
before there was Jesse Owens and Jackie Robinson
if you don't already know the story of Major Taylor you should read this book. before there was a Jesse Owens a Jackie Robinson or Jack Johnson here was Major Taylor. this book does a wonderful job in describing in unbelievable detail the life and trials of Major Taylor. you don't have to be a cyclist to appreciate the dedication and persistence and determination that major Taylor exhibited in his day. you don't even have to be black to truly understand the importance of Major Taylor. I would highly recommend reading this book is it tells not only a story of Major Taylor but a great historic account of race relations during this. of time.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Kindle Customer
- 06-23-19
My Thoghts
excellent
Major Taylor's life
The history of the bike
The histoty of the times
excellent
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1 person found this helpful
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- StayDry
- 12-17-19
wow, who knew?
very interesting story, both as biographically and historically. A great reminder for us not to backtrack on the progress made for civil rights and against bigotry!
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1 person found this helpful
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- rafojas
- 05-05-21
This is an Important book.
I have tried several times to write a simple review for this book and I just can't seem to coherently express how good this book is. I knew the short version of this history but .. . . Wow, Just wow.
That being said this book should be required reading.
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- David Z
- 11-21-19
Wonderful I nspiration through trouble times.
What a great story! You practically hung on every word as Major Taylor was nearing the winning completion of his races. As a sports story it was a very good read. But, what struck me was also the rampant racism so prevalent at this time in our American history. Yet, through it all Major Taylor prevailed not just on the racetrack but also in life.
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- Brentin
- 10-19-21
Reviving a nearly forgotten legacy
Even today, despite a resurgence of all forms of bicycling, the story of Major Taylor isn't very well known, even among bicyclists. This book seeks to change that, chronicling the life of an extraordinary man.
Born into a poor family, Marshall "Major" Taylor would be a true rags to riches story, except he never quite got rich. But he did get famous the world over for bicycle racing. Along the way he faced racism, s changing political climate, and the rise of the automobile.
The book does a very good job of laying out Taylor's life story. The narrations of the races are particularly entertaining. However, in an attempt to place Taylor's story in historical context, it takes many tangents, sometimes on lengthy detours. Some of these the author only loosely ties into the story, saying "Taylor likely would have known about this" or "Taylor could hardly have failed to notice that".
It's worth a read, however, even if you aren't that interested in bicycling. It covers a lot, from the ever-changing racial attitudes, to the struggles of aging athletes, to responsibly managing money.
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1 person found this helpful