Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Grant
    Unavailable
    Grant
    Unavailable
    Grant
    Ebook1,894 pages31 hours

    Grant

    By Ron Chernow

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A dramatic portrait of one of America's most compelling generals and presidents, Ulysses S. Grant, by Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Chernow, author of the book on which the astonishing musical Hamilton is based.

    As late as April 1861, when the American Civil War broke out, Ulysses S. Grant was a dismal failure. A competent officer in the war against Mexico, he had resigned from the army over his drinking and had sunk into poverty as a civilian, losing all his money in hopeless investments. He had failed to secure the command of a volunteer unit and was about to return to his abject life working in his family's leather-goods store when he was offered the colonelcy of an Illinois regiment. Less than four years later he was the commanding general of the victorious Union armies and was hailed as a military genius. He later served two terms as President of the United States. This is the epic biography of a very unheroic American hero, a modest, reticent and principled man who surprised the world and changed it for the better.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHead of Zeus
    Release dateNov 2, 2017
    ISBN9781788541589
    Unavailable
    Grant
    Author

    Ron Chernow

    Ron Chernow is the Pulitzer prize-winning author of Washington: A Life. Alexander Hamilton and Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr were both nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award in biography. Chernow lives in New York.

    Related to Grant

    Related ebooks

    Military Biographies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Theodore Dreiser’s New York

      Oct 26, 2017

      Theodore Dreiser’s New York
      8 min read

    • Article

      10 Best Books Of September: The Monitor's Books

      Sep 6, 2018

      From a true story of character reformation to a passionate primer on opera to an engaging fictional tale about a 1916 election, here are the 10 September books the Monitor's book critics liked best.

      2 min read

    • Article

      ‘A Sickening Sight’

      Aug 15, 2023

      ‘A Sickening Sight’
      11 min read

    • Article

      American Myth: The Short, Beautiful Life of Breece D’J Pancake

      Jun 26, 2017

      The best American writer of his generation would have been sixty-five this week. The post American Myth: The Short, Beautiful Life of Breece D’J Pancake appeared first on The Millions.

      14 min read

    • Article

      Also On The Bookshelf

      Mar 19, 2020

      As the daughter of Henry I, Matilda had a strong claim to the English throne. But the nation was thrown into chaos when she became embroiled in a long and bitter fight for the crown with her cousin, Stephen. This fast-moving biography of one of the m

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Landscape Was His Mistress

      Feb 9, 2022

      IN 1802, John Constable wrote seven observations and resolutions about art. In them, among other things, he pledged to follow Nature, to make ‘unaffected’ pictures, and to avoid ‘common place people’. He also declared that ‘there is no easy way of be

      5 min read

    • Article

      A Klansman’s Horrific Reign

      Aug 15, 2023

      A Klansman’s Horrific Reign
      12 min read

    • Article

      Must See, Must Read

      Jan 22, 2019

      (2018, by Rod Macleod): Born with a name dime novelist Ned Buntline might have made up, Samuel Benfield Steele was among the founding fathers of the North-West Mounted Police, and his own exploits helped make it legendary. Macleod’s extensive researc

      13 min read

    • Article

      An Occurrence at sierra Mojada

      Jul 6, 2021

      An Occurrence at sierra Mojada
      16 min read

    • Article

      Must See, Must Read

      Jul 24, 2018

      Must See, Must Read
      11 min read

    • Article

      Butchering the Mythic West

      Jan 5, 2021

      Butchering the Mythic West
      14 min read

    • Article

      Suspendered In Time

      Apr 8, 2021

      Suspendered In Time
      6 min read

    • Article

      Guardians Of Our Culture

      Jun 30, 2022

      THE DEATH OF MIDGE DECTER, at the age of 94, marks the passing of a golden age of intellectual journalism. Having witnessed all the vicissitudes of the American century from Pearl Harbor to 9/11, and challenged progressive orthodoxies from Lyndon Joh

      8 min read

    • Article

      Franklin D. Roosevelt

      May 3, 2021

      Franklin D. Roosevelt
      6 min read

    • Article

      Rival Bonds

      Dec 24, 2019

      Rival Bonds
      7 min read

    • Article

      Behind The Fake News

      Dec 27, 2019

      Behind The Fake News
      7 min read

    • Article

      Poet Of The Newsroom

      Mar 2, 2020

      Poet Of The Newsroom
      4 min read

    • Article

      Churchill’s Mommie Dearest

      Jun 2, 2021

      Jennie Churchill, Winston’s American mother, died shockingly prematurely 100 years ago this month, on 29th June 1921, after a fall downstairs. She was 67 and in the prime of life, newly married to a man 20 years younger and had finally found a way of

      5 min read

    • Article

      Peter Mckay

      Aug 24, 2022

      Peter Mckay
      3 min read

    • Article

      Acting The Ass

      Mar 26, 2023

      Acting The Ass
      2 min read

    • Article

      Hard Labour

      Sep 30, 2021

      AHUGE BEARDED MAN IS SLUMPED in a heap, deeply unconscious, on the floor of the telephone booth. The receiver swings to and fro above his head. Passers-by in the hotel corridor can hear an exasperated voice pleading from the earpiece “Hello! Hello! W

      9 min read

    Reviews for Grant

    4.5/5

    282 ratings21 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      As always, anything by Ron Chernow is a wonderful read for American history junkies. This was too. But of all Chernow's biographies, this appears to me to be the "weakest". The pre-civil war period is covered well and methodically - in Chernow style - but the post civil war period has been more thoroughly vetted by other Grant historians. And remember please, that Grant's own memoirs are not to be missed or discounted. Additionally, Grant was an above average wordsmith and wrote these memoirs as he was dying. He had a sterling fidelity to pure, ground truth and Chernow's biography pales in comparison. For the general reader Washington and Hamilton was more ground-breaking.
    • 4/5
      I appreciate that Chernow was trying to push back on characterizations of Grant as a drunk and a butcher, but at times he goes to far in trying to prove that Grant was not those things that he ignores or downplays incidents that support those characterizations. In doing so, he comes across as more of a "fan" than a neutral historian sometimes. That said, I appreciated the level of detail he chose to include. Make no mistake this book is loooong and includes a great deal of detail, but I never thought it got lost in the details the way some other authors do (cough Caro cough). This one made sure each detail supported the narrative through line of Grant's life in a way that the reader understood why it was included.
    • 3/5
      There are lots of interesting tidbits here, but the book is pretty exhaustive so there are lots of other bits that make me wonder why anyone ever wrote about them in the first place for the author to include. The tone of the book is strange, too, excessively defensive and almost fawning at times.
    • 4/5
      This book is long, which I guess is how these big popular histories are supposed to be these days, but it's really engrossing too. I think many popular histories would benefit from more brevity, but I guess that's an argument for another day.Chernow is a Grant defender, and makes a good case that many of the criticisms of the man- his alcoholism, his brutal military tactics, his ineffectiveness in stopping the South from initiating Jim Crow, the corruption of his administration- are unfair.For starters, he paints Grant as a man who was prone to alcoholism, but who was able to abstain from drink most of the time; I was struck by his understanding of the nature of alcoholism well before there was any science on this. He employed a staff officer during the Civil War whose job was at least partially to keep alcohol away from him. By the post-Civil War era, he had largely conquered it, and would be characterized today as someone fully "in recovery", though without any of the supports a similar person would have today.His military exploits are grippingly described, and a great case is made for him as a really good general with a strong grasp of strategy that his northern predecessors and contemporaries did not possess. Mainly, he understood that when you have the larger army and the greater resources, the strategy is to attack and stay on the offensive, whereas other generals in the north were too timid and kept allowing the South to resupply and reorganize when they were ripe for the picking.As for Reconstruction, this is tougher. The book does a great job laying out the challenges of protecting ex-slaves in an unrepentant South, and I realized that this part of US history is really poorly taught in schools (at least to me, and I was a History major in college!). On one hand, Chernow believes that Grant's heart was in the right place and that he had very progressive views on rights for African-Americans. On the other hand, though, he didn't really do enough to keep southern mobs from killing lots of innocent people and dis-enfranchising Black people. At the same time, the north was exhausted and there wasn't much support for continuing to occupy the south. It was a tough situation, but I think one can make the argument that Grant cared more about being magnanimous toward white southerners than about protecting black southerners.Also interesting, Grant was amazingly naive in his personal/business life, and trusted a long string of charlatans and thieves during his presidency (leading to lots of corruption scandals during his presidency, of which he was apparently unaware until each one broke), and throughout his life- he was repeatedly swindled by confidence men, and never seemed to learn and be less trusting.Good read, if you've got the time.
    • 5/5
      Wonderful book.
    • 4/5
      The second book for our Less Stupid Civil War reading group. It was interesting as a follow-up to Battle Cry of Freedom, getting Grant's story before the war, going over the Civil War again, but this time with a focus on Grant's armies, but then, especially what happened after the war -- Grant's presidency, Reconstruction, violence in the South... Grant's strengths and weaknesses as a president, the corruption of the Gilded Age, the brief promise of full citizenship for freed blacks, and then how quickly that promise was eroded by murder, fraud, and antipathy.Sometimes I questioned some of Chernow's choices -- he'd go into little asides giving minor biographies of some of the bit players in Grant's life, when I would have preferred more info on those closest to him instead -- or later, when Grant is president, there are mentions of so many Senators and other political players, and I was constantly wondering: Tyler, Polk, Garfield? Had they been presidents already or would be presidents later? Were they actually just relatives of presidents? But these almost familiar appearances were rarely explained.Overall, though, I appreciated the relatively even-handed way Chernow approached Grant's controversies -- the drinking, the Whiskey Ring corruption, etc. As much as Grant's memoirs have been praised (which I may someday still read), I appreciated the perspective of a third party here.I'm no Grant scholar, but I expect that's why I liked this book so much -- as a reintroduction to a man whose reputation has changed wildly over the ages -- largely inversely with the Lost Cause theory of the Civil War. It's good to have him back -- faults included -- but with a new understanding of all he did and tried to do to make the promise of America true for all Americans.
    • 5/5
      5585. Grant, by Ron Chernow read 10 Oct 2018) Because I read McFeeley's excellent biography of Grant on 9 Feb 1985 I thought it might not be necessary to read this massive biography, though I had read with much appreciation Chernow's biographies of the House of Morgan (on 14 June 1994), Rockefeller (on 22 Nov 1999), Hamilton (on 27 Nov 2004), and Washington (on 6 Jul 2011), when my nephew gave me a copy of this book I decided I should read it and I am very glad I did. It tells very well of Grant's life, beginning on 27 April 1822, of his time at West Point, his surfdy service in the Mexican War, his sruggles in the Army thereafter, his leaving the Army and his undistinguished time as a civilian from 1854 to 1861, his exemplary time and steady advancement during the Civil War, his interesting time during Andrew Johnson's presidency, his two terms as President, his trip around the world in 1877 and 1878, his effort to have a third term as President, and the dramatic events between 1880 and his death at 8:08 A.M. on July 25, 1885. Chernow ighlights Grant's efforts to protect the rights of of the ex-slaves andin that regard Grant was on the right side, even though there was much scandal in his administration due to Grant's over-trusting nature. . So there was much ad during Grant's ime as President but Chernow shows the good position he took in regard to the rights of blacks as the whites of the South ruthlessly retook power and reduced the Negro to subserviency.. The book deserves to be read and overall it is good reading and the picture it presents is highly interesting.
    • 5/5
      Defeated Robert E. Lee. Realized his potential during the Civil War. Military fame and became a 2 term President but his administration was marred by scandal. Worked with Mark Twain on his autobigraphy
    • 4/5
      I had read and admired Grant's memoirs but since Grant left a lot out of that work, I enjoyed Chernow's more thorough treatment of the challenges, life and accomplishments of the general who won the Civil War and, as president, tried with all his ability to reunite the nation. Unfortunately, I felt that Chernow was so thorough that the book drags a times. For example, how often do we need to go over the truths, lies and exaggerations about Grant's use of alcohol. I was also skeptical that Grant was as progressive as Chernow portrays him, despite his evidently sincere and strenuous efforts to preserve the rights of black Americans during his years in the White House. One surprise was to find the role Grant played after his presidency as a diplomat without portfolio.
    • 4/5
      Grant is a biographer's dream. An improbable war hero, a beaten underdog who rose against the odds, a likeable person. So it's no surprise there are an embarrassment of Grant biography riches: a Pulitzer Prize winner, another Pulitzer nominee and at least 5 other high quality award-winning top-shelf biographies still in print, not to mention Grant's own memoir some consider the best of the Civil War. Given the competition, a way to distinguish from the crowd is to write one longer than the rest, Chernow's specialty. For those who read the earlier biographies, they might wonder what more is found in this 1000 page behemoth. I couldn't really say, this is my first Grant bio, but I don't feel the need to read another soon. I knew little about Grant and so everything was new. Chernow's descriptions of the Civil War in the West helped solidify that complex theater, as well as the Overland campaign, a single running battle of attrition. I was amazed how close the South came to re-enacting slavery after the war, and how crucial Grant was to stopping it. Also the amount of violence that continued for years afterwards, I'd like to learn more. Grant was certainly the most important person of the era, after Lincoln.This is a fine book, very readable. Chernow is sympathetic to his subject and reader.
    • 5/5
      LOVE this book! Ron Chernow's impeccable and thorough research leads to a lively story about an American hero who is underappreciated and often misunderstood.
    • 5/5
      A superbly readable book. Despite being nearly one thousand pages, this book reads quickly. An even handed look at Grant's strengths and weaknesses provide a complete picture of the subject. Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      Absolutely amazing book. Highly recommend!
    • 4/5
      I recommend this book.. Working through biographies on Presidents. I think Grant is maligned. While this work points out his faults and frailties, it is a sobering tribute to the human spirit and the need to be involved in good causes, regardless.
    • 5/5
      Chernow's bio on Grant shows has as become the norm, a terrific narrative. The sections dealing with his youth and his experiences both during Mexican-American War and the Civil War, while well presented don't show any unique insights or interpretations, but still well written. I must say though the sections on his presidency and post presidency are well written and offer interesting insights. Another winnier for Ron Chernow and well worth the time for all to read .
    • 5/5
      A fantastic and thorough history of Grant's life from childhood, early adulthood through is death. Very little is left out of this very long, but very readable tome. It naturally focuses on his time in the Union Army during the Civil War and his 2 terms as President, but sufficient time is given to his early Army career and post-presidency life. I thought there was a little too much focus on his drinking, but that is likely because Chernow was trying to dispel Grant's reputation as a drunk. An excellent book and a great read.
    • 5/5
      An absolutely marvelous book. Grant's life was certainly not has been taught correctly in schools - not a drunkard, not corrupt, and a superb strategist whose time as leader of the Army of the Potomac won the Civil War. I learned so much not only about Grant, but about Lincoln, other politicians, the Civil War and others of that time period. Although a lengthy read, it was one of those where I wish I could have spent more time to have finished it sooner. Chernow has authored another wonderful biography.
    • 5/5
      I only wish is that the author provided more detail of the destruction of the KKK.
    • 5/5
      Captured both the brilliance and the flaws of the man and the times.
    • 5/5
      Grant holds an interesting place in American history. While known as the victorious commander of Union for each durable the Civil War, his presidency is remembered as a failure, bedeviled by cronyism and corruption. His memoirs hold their place as a minor masterpiece of American prose.

      Less well remembered was his role as a champion of civil rights during the Reconstruction. He was also at the forefront of reconciliation between North and South. The post-Civil War era of the United States issue one that has been obscured by the so-called "lost cause" rewriting of history and this aspect of Grant's life gets good attention here.

      This biography attempts to encompass the whole man, but except for the chapters covering his military career, Grant remains an enigma. As President, he often seems to be more driven by his fellow politicians than a shaper of policy, but his terms in office are shown to be more successful than is generally believed.
    • 4/5
      After starting this book, barely getting through the introduction, I quickly set it aside. It suffers the flaw of many popular biographies of idolizing the subject. Grant is good, under-appreciated by history, and can do no bad. I came back to the book, and this flaw persists throughout. Chernow is constantly making excuses for Grant, or skipping over negative situations. With that said, I still enjoyed the book tremendously and learned a lot from it. I learned the most from Chernow's description of Grant's presidency, when he was trying to manage Reconstruction, and the period immediately afterward. It was intriguing to ponder the challenges Grant faced, and how things could have gone differently.