About the book
Biographer Ron Chernow sets out to correct the long-standing image of Ulysses S. Grant as a failed businessman, a heavy drinker and a brutal Union commander. The narrative follows Grant from failed business ventures and an army resignation amid drinking accusations, through Shiloh, Vicksburg and victory over Robert E. Lee, to a two-term presidency marred by scandals among his staff. Chernow stresses Grant's protection of freed black Americans, including his fight against the Ku Klux Klan, and his work with Mark Twain to publish his memoirs. Chernow argues that Lost Cause partisans demonized Grant, whose drinking Gilded Age historians made a central theme. Published in 2017, it twice reached the top of the New York Times nonfiction best seller list.
Bill Clinton called it a fine biography whose greatest service is reminding readers of Grant's significance, and he praised both its scholarship and its writing. Jeremy Boudinet, marketing manager at Nextiva, read it during a stretch of personal and professional ups and downs and found Grant a fascinating figure whose life swung between major triumphs and long stretches of failure.
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This book has 2 recommendations
Bill Clinton (President/United States)
This is a good time for Ron Chernow’s fine biography of Ulysses S. Grant to appear… As history, it is remarkable, full of fascinating details sure to make it interesting both to those with the most cursory knowledge of Grant’s life and to those who have read his memoirs or any of several previous biographies… For all its scholarly and literary strengths, this book’s greatest service is to remind us of Grant’s significant achievements at the end of the war and after, which have too long been overlooked and are too important today to be left in the dark… As Americans continue the struggle to defend justice and equality in our tumultuous and divisive era, we need to know what Grant did when our country’s very existence hung in the balance. If we still believe in forming a more perfect union, his steady and courageous example is more valuable than ever.
Jeremy Boudinet (Marketing Manager/Nextiva)
I read Ron Chernow's biography of Ulysses S. Grant at a crucial point in my life, when I was struggling with a few personal and professional career ups-and-downs. Grant is a fascinating character in U.S. history. His life was a dramatic roller coaster of major personal and professional triumphs that were inevitably followed by periods of massive failure and disappointment. Of course, all of this led up to his historic date with destiny as the winning General the U.S. desperately needed during the Civil War. An important takeaway from Grant's story is his primary character virtue - a stoic determination that ultimately carried him through periods of disenchantment and brought the Union victory in the Civil War. There's a lesson in there for all of us fighting in the trenches of business - we'll inevitably face some of the same ups-and-downs that Grant did. And we should aim to carry ourselves like he did.
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