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
Ron Chernow is the prizewinning author of six previous books and the recipient of the 2015 National Humanities Medal. His first book, The House of Morgan, won the National Book Award, Washington: A Life won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, and Alexander Hamilton—the inspiration for the Broadway musical—won the George Washington Book Prize. A past president of PEN America, Chernow has been the recipient of eight honorary doctorates. He resides in Brooklyn, New York.
Harlow Jane Cassidy is swamped with homecoming couture requests. If only she didn’t have to
help solve a murder, she might get the gowns off the dress forms.... Harlow is doing everything she can to expand her dressmaking business, Buttons ...
A wonderfully resplendent evocation of a newcomer's America (Chang-rae Lee, author of Native Speaker) by
the father of Korean American literatureA Penguin ClassicHaving fled Japanese-occupied Korea for the gleaming promise of the United States with nothing but four dollars and ...
Startlingly talented . . . he survives the inevitable, apt comparisons to Kurt Vonnegut and
writes in a tenderly mordant voice all his own. -Janet Maslin, The New York Times In this novel rich in character, Junior Thibodeau grows up ...
A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017From the great historian of the American Revolution,
New York Times-bestselling and Pulitzer-winning Gordon Wood, comes a majestic dual biography of two of America's most enduringly fascinating figures, whose partnership helped birth a ...
The electrifying, cutting-edge (USA Today) debut work of fiction from Ron Currie, author of the
forethcoming novel The One-Eyed Man (March 2017) Ron Currie’s gutsy, funny book is instantly gripping: If God takes human form and dies, what would become ...
“Ingenious… Builds to one of the most memorable final scenes I’ve read in a novel
this century.” —The New York TimesWINNER OF THE 2018 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION FINALIST FOR THE 2019 INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN LITERARY AWARDLONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE ...
“Lee Grant has lived her life and practiced her craft with reckless abandon, bravery, honesty,
and ultimately brutal clarity.”—Tony Award-winner Frank Langella Already a celebrated Broadway star and Vogue “It Girl,” Lee Grant was just twenty-four when she was nominated for ...
From the USA Today bestselling author of Midnight Captive, the latest Killer Instincts novel is
“off-the-charts-hot”* romantic suspense that takes readers into the heart of an enigmatic mercenary... Out of all the stone-cold mercenaries in Jim Morgan's black ops ...