The Reign: The Life of Marshall "Major" Taylor, 1898-1904

He conquered the world. On his terms. In his time.

Book Two of The Fastest Human on Earth, and the years when Marshall "Major" Taylor was the fastest human being alive and the whole sport knew it.

1898 to 1904. World's Champion Cyclist in 1899, at twenty-one. Records falling one after another. Crowds in Paris, Melbourne, Sydney, and every board track in America, paying to watch one man ride.

And underneath it, the cost. Riders teaming against him in the pack, elbows at forty miles an hour, purses split in hotel rooms so the winner came away with nothing. Hotels that would not house the main attraction. A Sabbath he would not break, in a sport that raced on Sundays.This is the volume where the trilogy's central question sharpens: what does it cost to be the best in the world at something a country does not want you to be best at?

Narrative history, anchored to the documented record: race results, contracts, the newspaper columns that praised him on one page and campaigned against him on the next.

Follows The Spark. Concludes in Retribution and Resurrection.

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