Grant - The Library of the Uncommons

Paperback, 1104 pages

English language

Published Nov. 12, 2018 by Penguin Books.

ISBN:: 978-0-14-311063-7
OCLC Number:: 1078951145

Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is carica- tured as a chronic loser and an inept businessman, or as the triumphant but brutal Union general. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing this complex figure, as Ron Chernow shows in his masterful biography. With lucidity, breadth, and meticulousness, Chernow traces the disparate stories in Grant's life—from his lifelong struggle with alcoholism, to his defeat of the legendary Confederate general Robert E. Lee, from his efforts to crush the Ku Klux Klan during his two- term presidency, to the scandals that marred it—and finds the threads that bind them together. The definitive biography, Grant is a grand synthesis of painstaking research and literary brilliance that makes sense of the many sides of Grant's life, explaining how this simple Midwesterner could at once be so ordinary and so extraordinary—a man whom Walt Whitman described as …

Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is carica- tured as a chronic loser and an inept businessman, or as the triumphant but brutal Union general. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing this complex figure, as Ron Chernow shows in his masterful biography. With lucidity, breadth, and meticulousness, Chernow traces the disparate stories in Grant's life—from his lifelong struggle with alcoholism, to his defeat of the legendary Confederate general Robert E. Lee, from his efforts to crush the Ku Klux Klan during his two- term presidency, to the scandals that marred it—and finds the threads that bind them together. The definitive biography, Grant is a grand synthesis of painstaking research and literary brilliance that makes sense of the many sides of Grant's life, explaining how this simple Midwesterner could at once be so ordinary and so extraordinary—a man whom Walt Whitman described as "nothing heroic ... and yet the greatest hero." --back cover

10 editions

forpeterssake@bookwyrm.social reviewed Grant by Ron Chernow

A humanizing look at a towering figure in history

4 stars

Grant's legacy seems to have waned and waxed as we collectively grapple with the era he shaped—the American Civil War and Reconstruction. Chernow portrays Grant as a man who remained relatively unchanged by pressure, stress, fame, and power. While it sometimes resulted in trusting people that could not be trusted, it also let him wage a new kind of war and persevere in protecting the lives and livelihoods of freed black citizens. Chernow's biography of Grant is accessible and readable, and if he shows some preference for his subject, it is quite understandable.