Grant

By: Ron Chernow

Narrated by: Mark Bramhall

Length: 48 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

The #1 New York Times bestseller and New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of 2017

“Eminently readable but thick with import . . . Grant hits like a Mack truck of knowledge.”—Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic

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

©2017 Ron Chernow (P)2017 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“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.”—Bill Clinton, New York Times Book Review

“Grant is vast and panoramic in ways that history buffs will love. Books of its caliber by writers of Chernow’s stature are rare, and this one qualifies as a major event . . . . Chernow is clearly out to find undiscovered nobility in his story, and he succeeds; he also finds uncannily prescient tragedy. There are ways in which Grant’s times eerily resemble our own . . . Indispensable.”—The New York Times

“Chernow tells all this rapidly and well; his talent is suited to Grant’s story . . . He is extraordinarily good on what could be called, unpejoratively, the Higher Gossip of History—he can uncannily detect the actual meaning beneath social interactions . . . Fluent and intelligent.”—Adam Gopnik, New Yorker

I had no idea!

Wow! I had no idea that U. S. Grant was this important to civil rights let alone U.S. history! This was an amazing listen, and I can't recommend it strongly enough.

Tremendous biography of Grant

This is a very thorough, comprehensive, and balanced biography of Ulysses Grant. In my opinion, this is now the high bar against which all other biographies of Grant are to be measured.

Yep, it's 48 hours! And it's fabulous.

I've been on a brush-up-on-the-Civil-War reading kick. I picked this up thinking I would just delve into it from time to time, but the book is so well-written, the narration so good, and the man so truly great that I went right through it. I found it practically a page-turner through the end of the Civil War. Seriously. Chernow is a very gifted writer who feels very deeply for his subject. Grant is a fascinating figure, a man who was largely a failure in life until the war, a man who won the war while battling his own alcoholism, and a president who championed the freedom and rights of Blacks, trying desperately to safeguard the gains of the Civil War against the Klan and similar groups. He had an amazing faith in people and got hoodwinked so many times that you want to kick him in the backside. It's an incredible life and a terrific book. Mark Bramhall does a beautiful job with the narration, no surprise there, and his wry tone matches Chernow's well. Highly, highly recommended.

A flawed biography.

The five stars are for grants awesome achievements. Many. Really a great.
Chernow focuses so often and so irritably on the possibility that grant drank alcohol that this almost became a treatise on someone who drank that I really had to skip ahead. Really who cares? So he drank. So what. Maybe getting plastered every now and then was his only way to maintain his very singular ability to take the war thru to an end. No one else could yet grant triumphed and later triumphed again as a compassionate and intelligent president. I think Chernow was trying to reduce grant to his own level and failed. Real results count. Gossip is immaterial.

great biography of a great man

Any additional comments?

I believe Grant benefited by leaving the army in the years prior to the civil war. Otherwise he might have been lost in the military swamp in which McClellan and Lee rose in the ranks. His failure in the civilian ranks probably hardened him for his later tasks. If he was an alcoholic he was a strange one. He could go months or years without a drink from willpower alone. Apparently he was never drunk when it mattered. Even then he was no worse than others. He was a good man, a good husband and father as well as a great general and president. He was probably even a better man and president than Lincoln. Andrew Johnson was a horrible man and successor to Lincoln and Grant did his best to repair the damage he caused. Lee was a good general but not as good as some of his Confederate mates. He appears not to have been a very good man. Grant could recognize talent in his military commanders but not so in his civilian subordinates. He was an extraordinary president unfortunately tarnished by the corruption of a few of those he appointed.

Revealing unknown history

A complete portrait of an amazing life - goes well beyond the stereotype of Grant and delves into history rarely covered.

To Know Him is to Love Him

I loved this Audible book! It was a fantastic 48 hours of material. By the end of the book, I could feel an emotional connection with the man when describing his funeral procession. I am happy this helped to repaint his presidency in mind. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys history or wants to hear how little has changed in US politics, despite what modern media would have you believe.

Grant - A Great President and Hero

I had a poor view of Grant but all due to my lack of curiosity and inadequate information. Grant should be honored right along with Lincoln and Washington. Read this book and be rewarded.

Needs PDF

Amazing and thoroughly enjoyable. There were a couple of things that made me want to check the text; i.e. "tight as a brick", which I have always heard as "tight as a tick", etc.
I agree with a previous reviewer that this audiobook should include the maps and photos included in the book.

Overall, wonderful book and great performance by the narrator. Absolutely worth the purchase.

I didn’t want it to end...

This is my third Chernow book and prior, I felt he was a great historian but not the best story teller. But he has obviously honed his craft. Now he seems to be great at both.

I didn’t want it to end. Grant is a fascinating figure - and the perfect prism through which to view the Civil War and the Reconstruction.

Chernow is obviously a fan of Grant and shines a kinder light than many historical works do. And deservedly so, I believe.

Though it is long - I can’t recommend this enough.