"Then The World Moved On: The Brutal Truth Behind the Baer-Campbell Fight" by Catherine Johnson, knocks boxing history on its cauliflowered ear, with the most painstakingly researched and scrupulously detailed book ever written about the tragic end of Frankie Campbell, and Max Baer's shocking hand in his death.
Preceded with a Foreword by Ray Mancini, the book chronicles not only thoroughly covers Campbell's life and career, it examines the multiple myths and stories believed about Baer, exhaustively examines Campbell's fight with Baer, the resultant fallout and appalling coverup of the truth of that night, and the horrific details of Baer's lies and manipulation of the event and its aftermath.
A variety of original source materials, never accessed by previous historians, and going back a century, were thoroughly investigated and meticulously pieced together, among them newspapers, court transcripts, medical records, genealogical, archival, federal, state, and local records, along with psychological analysis and brain trauma study, as well as interviews with Campbell's family members, former pro fighters, and boxing historians.
Fully 75% of the content is new to you, and the other 25% is 1880-1930 world/boxing history to place the story in perspective. The author spent over 4,000 hours on research over 3 years for this book. A google search of articles, blogs, and forum posts won't unearth this information. The author lived and breathed and dreamed this book. After you read this history-altering work, your entire perspective of what you though you knew, about the fight, about Baer, and about Campbell, will shift completely.
Along with over 1400 cited sources, over 150 rare photos, illustrations, and fight advertisements, the book also discusses the legendary men who made California a boxing mecca in the early Twentieth Century, and the popular venues where fights were held. Woven artfully into the narrative, is how the context of the times, the Golden Age of American Sports, the Roaring Twenties, Prohibition, and the Great Depression, affected the sport, and the lives of the men who molded the game.
