"Some men are born great, as Shakespeare mused, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them. And very few, he might have added, can claim all three. Pele is one of them." - Joseph Sepp Blatter

Born in Brazil in 1940, Edson Arantes do Nascimento--better known as Pele--is one of the most recognizable men in the world, and perhaps the first true superstar athlete. In this unprecedented look at the man Time magazine named one of the top twenty "Heroes and Icons" of the twentieth century, award-winning sportswriter Harry Harris brilliantly charts the meteoric rise of the small-town boy who became a living legend. Featuring exclusive interviews with Pele, his family, friends and colleagues, along with sixteen pages of rare private photographs and a comprehensive index, Pele: His Life and Times is the definitive biography of soccer's greatest ambassador.