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Overview
Overview
The #1 New York Times bestseller. New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of 2017 Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Chernow returns with a sweeping and dramatic portrait of one of our most compelling generals and presidents, Ulysses S. Grant. Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and an inept businessman, or as the triumphant but brutal Union general of the Civil War. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing him, as Chernow shows in his masterful biography, the first to provide a complete understanding of the general and president whose fortunes rose and fell with dizzying speed and frequency. Before the Civil War, Grant was flailing. His business ventures had ended dismally, and despite distinguished service in the Mexican War he ended up resigning from the army in disgrace amid recurring accusations of drunkenness. But in war, Grant began to realize his remarkable potential, soaring through the ranks of the Union army, prevailing at the battle of Shiloh and in the Vicksburg campaign, and ultimately defeating the legendary Confederate general Robert E. Lee. Along the way, Grant endeared himself to President Lincoln and became his most trusted general and the strategic genius of the war effort. Grant's military fame translated into a two-term presidency, but one plagued by corruption scandals involving his closest staff members. More important, he sought freedom and justice for black Americans, working to crush the Ku Klux Klan and earning the admiration of Frederick Douglass, who called him "the vigilant, firm, impartial, and wise protector of my race." After his presidency, he was again brought low by a dashing young swindler on Wall Street, only to resuscitate his image by working with Mark Twain to publish his memoirs, which are recognized as a masterpiece of the genre. With lucidity, breadth, and meticulousness, Chernow finds the threads that bind these disparate stories together, shedding new light on the man whom Walt Whitman described as "nothing heroic... and yet the greatest hero." Chernow's probing portrait of Grant's lifelong struggle with alcoholism transforms our understanding of the man at the deepest level. This is America's greatest biographer, bringing movingly to life one of our finest but most underappreciated presidents. The definitive biography, Grant is a grand synthesis of painstaking research and literary brilliance that makes sense of all sides of Grant's life, explaining how this simple Midwesterner could at once be so ordinary and so extraordinary. Named one of the best books of the year by Goodreads - Amazon - The New York Times - Newsday - BookPage - Barnes and Noble - Wall Street Journal
- Format: TradePaperback
- Author: Chernow, Ron
- ISBN: 9780143110637
- Condition: Used
- Dimensions: 9.10 x 2.50
- Number Of Pages: 1104
- Publication Year: 2018
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Complex and fascinating-a human story.
Barbara E. - 6 years 5 months agoFantastic and in-depth view of a very complex and fascinating President/person/General/soul. I would recommend this to anyone who loves history, government, the military or just has an interest in the paradox of human nature. Well written and well researched-this is a must read-and savor it. No hurry to finish. Ponder the context as you immerse in the challenges.
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Ron Chernow's GRANT, a balanced examination of the complicated man that was US Grant.
Steve S. - 6 years 5 months agoHaving read the General's massive autobiography Memoirs, and as a student of the Civil War, I thought I knew US Grant fairly well. However, the impetus for beginning the tome of Ron Chernow's Grant was a throw-away comment someone hurled at me. They asked, "did you know Grant once owned a slave?" How could this possibly be? The hero and savior of the Union? The President who created the Justice Department to save the freedmen from the Klu Klux Klan in the Reconstruction South - how could this be true? That was the trailhead for me to dive back into a very complicated, innocent, and complex man that was one of America's greatest generals. Chernow follows him from boyhood, to his failures (there are devastating failures) and triumphs in Army and civilian life, though his Presidency and retirement to the writing of his Memoirs. Chernow writes a balanced biography by weighing two faces to the coin.