Boxer Muhammad Ali and Soldier Idi Amin As International Political Symbols: The Bioeconomics of Sport and War

Abstract

Did Idi Amin join the army because of a lack of alternative economic opportunities for uneducated Kakwa in colonial Uganda? Or was he helped by the prior attractiveness of “tall African specimens” to those who were recruiting for the King's African Rifles? Why have black people performed better by world standards in athletics than in most other sports and games? Does the explanation lie in the low economic status of blacks? Or is it partly a question of the physical attributes of some black “athletic specimens?” Did the food culture of the Gurkhas and Punjabis help to make them “martial people” suitable for recruitment into the Indian army? Or were there primarily economic differences between them and the less martial communities of India like, say, the Gujerati?

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