This book took me years to read.

But it was worth it from start to finish!

With its significant page count of over 1000 pages this nonfiction epic was not a book that was an easy undertaking but i absolutely loved it, even if i had to take some longer breaks between reading it to not get overwhelmed by the book.

The author knows that he is doing and is doing it well. Non-fiction epic life stories is not something that too many people can keep interesting enough to really make me want to read over 1000 pages, especially about a historical person from a completely different country and continent i am from, but Chernow knows his way around history so well that he makes in interesting and gives a truly amazing view into the times this book covers.

Was it a very big understaking?
Yes absolutely.

Did it take me way longer than i ever expected it to take me to read this?
Yes!

Was it worth it from start to finish?
Absolutely!

If you are interested in this book?
I can only say, read it.
Just take it at the pace you feel comfortable with. Don't try to rush it if thats not what you feel like. Its so well written, you don't need to devour all of it in the shortest amount of time to not forget the start before you finished the book.
The important things stick, since the author does such a good job.

Highly recommend it!

This was a very well researched book that brought new light to the life of US Grant. Chernow knows his stuff and is a very talented writer who brings big scenes to life and makes big figures relatable.

Many people may have become familiar with Grant from various Civil War histories or even from his own Memoirs. However, Chernow really brings the man to life. He seems to be born a soldier and will do the right thing no matter the cost. There is also an astounding level of detail that may not be easily found in other sources. the Reconstruction time period is most telling as he had to constantly re-fight the Civil War in the South again and again. His death was sad and Chernow has made that beautiful.

Once again, Chernow delivers! This is a fascinating biography, full of both historical and personal insight regarding Ulysses S. Grant. As with Chernow's other biographies, it is hefty, but well worth the long read. It was fascinating to read about Grant's life-long struggles with alcohol and trust in undeserving people, put up against the great good that he did both as a general and a president. Simply brilliant.

Chernow never disappoints. Although the amount of detail can often become overwhelming, especially in Grant's younger years, it all seems to help flesh out Grant as a man, and not just very good general and not so great president we're all familiar with. It's a doorstop of a book and can't be raced through. My father taught the American Civil War for decades and still loves to read books about the players in that war so I put this in his hands as well. Part of me wanted to see if Chernow had actually broken any new ground here. Surprisingly, even for someone as familiar as my father is with Grant and the war, he confirms that he learned a lot about Grant, particularly in regard to his younger years. We both rate this book highly.

A tip of the hat to #audible, which helped me plow through this book at 1.25 speed. It's hard to imagine someone not campaigning then becoming president. An interesting, worthy life examined in great detail. I've enjoyed all of Chernow's biographies.

This is an excellent biography which I recommend to those who enjoy that genre or history in general or American history specifically. While focused on Grant as it should be, this book also provides needed background on the state of the United States when Grant was a child and as he grew, as these changes in turn affected Grant's life and decisions.

Truly an excellent biography, covering childhood through to burial, Grant's struggles to find a place in the world before the coming of the Civil War which led to his and others' discovery of his military talents. I learned so much history of that era as well as of Grant' s life. To all intents and purposes, Grant was foundering in both military and civilian life prior to the beginning of the Civil War. It was only as he rose up through the ranks of officers and assumed battleground responsibilities, developing his own strategies, during the Western campaign of that war that his star began to rise and his skills and strengths were recognized. He too began to recognize that he had found a place he could succeed. Ultimately he found the major sponsor he would need and want, the President, Abraham Lincoln, for whom Grant provided much needed victories at a time of Northern despair.

After the war, the road seemed to lead only to the White House. There, some personality and work/military habits that had developed over time did not serve him well. Over time, they led to some long held negative views of his presidency. It is interesting that some of the personality traits that served Grant so well during wartime proved problematic when he was president. One of these involved his problem-solving and decision making skills. He was used to acting quickly, independently, almost instinctively. As President, he often did not consult with his cabinet, Congress, etc., did not consider public reactions when making decisions. This often led to conflict with Congress, members of Congress and backlash from the public. Also, because of an essential naivete about people, Grant would become enmeshed in schemes begun by various businessmen who sought to benefit from his position, his name, his past. This problem existed before the war, continued while he was in the White House and lasted for the rest of his life. He tended to admire the powerful and rich of his time and was slow to read them as individuals. He accepted them at their word and lost money and reputation at their hands. Chernow also deals with the often told tales of Grant's problems with alcohol in a way that feels very convincing to me.

Chernow's biography is excellent, painstaking in its detail from childhood to burial, outlining Grant's foibles and strengths, what he added to the institution of the presidency and what left with him. Grant lived during a hugely important time in American history: when the nation was moving from an agrarian to an industrial society; when the issue of secession was fought and decided (to the degree it would be); when the continent was about to be crossed by the railroad and the many tribes of Indians were being forced off the lands they had roamed for so many generations. Grant participated in all of these as a private individual, a soldier or a President.

I highly recommend this book!

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

This is an extremely well written biography on Grant.

I ended up stopping for quite some time after getting halfway through this mighty biography. However, it wasn’t because I had grown weary of it, or anything of the sort. Far from it, I had become completely engrossed in the life of Ulysses Grant, The honest truth is that this intimate overview of the Union general and former president makes for such stark contrast between the Union general and former president and the country’s current leadership that reading had almost become painful, and a break was necessary.

Yes, Grant was of course just a man with his fair amount of flaws. However, the picture that the author paints is a far cry the long-running popular conception of the forgettable drunk who wantonly threw his soldiers into the meat grinder of war. Chernow upends this completely by using all available evidence to paint an intensely detailed picture of a man who was a brilliant military leader, was more than willing to learn from his mistakes and change his views, battled his demons with everything he had, was fiercely loyal to his country and fought hard to put its well-being and above all else, was intense devoted to equality and justice….to repeat myself, the Grant presented here is a towering figure who stands worlds apart from what the United States must deal with at present. It’s someone who you read about, and can’t help but desperately wish that someone who was a mere fraction of was currently at the helm of the nation.

This intensely research and incredibly in-depth work should be considered an immediate classic in the realm of history and biography. Chernow hasn’t just changed the narrative completely here, which of course is no small feat on its own. He’s created an intimate overview of an overlooked national hero that will easily turn any reader into a firm admirer before they’ve made it halfway through (and if you’re like me, you may be so taken with the nation’s 18th president that you might find yourself toying with the idea of paying a near-future pilgrimage to General Grant Memorial in New York City’s Riverside Park).

Chernow has again crafted a well-researched but balanced, readable portrait of Grant. Filled with details of his personal and professional life, the author explores them through Grant's relationships with friends, family, and colleagues. Chernow is unafraid to tackle Grant's weaknesses but this biography shines as he relates his often overlooked significant achievements. A must read for history buffs and scholars alike!

Two thousand seventeen was a difficult year in many ways, and I chose to make it even more difficult by reading not one but two brick-like biographies of Grant: this one, and American Ulysses by Ronald White, both of which were supplied free of charge via those generous people at NetGalley. As fascinating as Grant is, this is not a life choice I can recommend to others in good conscience.

Chernow is a rock star of Presidential historians, largely on the reflected glory he received when his biography of Alexander Hamilton, improbably, inspired a wildly successful Broadway musical. During a podcast interview, I heard Chernow say that he now regularly meets elementary school children who shyly ask for his autograph. This must be some kind of first for the genre, and also a very pleasant and human-nature-restoring experience, of which the world is in desperately short supply in our benighted times.

Since (as the song goes) “Them that got shall have”, Chernow’s book was stacked high at the fashionable independent bookstore of Washington’s Dupont Circle in anticipation of the season of giving books that will plague your nightstand for months, whereas White was nowhere to be found on the day I visited.

I tend to sympathize with the underdog, that is, White. Also, White’s biography has my sympathy from the start by virtue of the simple fact that it is shorter by about 100 pages. I occasionally found that Chernow, probably freer from the tyranny of editors than White, piled on the details that perhaps could be left out. For example, I think most of the details about the clash of personalities between Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Grant could have gotten the red pen. I think Chernow was trying to make a point that the discord between the two wives may have caused Grant to beg off an invitation by President Lincoln to join him at Ford’s Theater on the night he was assassinated. This might be true, but in a life as crowded with event as Grant’s, some speculation about might-have-beens should be excised.

However, in the end, Chernow won me over. I think it is a better book for the armchair historian. It is just more dramatically written and stays in the mind longer.

Chernow’s book was so good that, in fact, I sometimes had to stop reading it. This problem stemmed from the fact that, as previously noted, I had only recently fully informed myself on the tragic moments of Grant’s life at length, and these moments never change, no matter how many times you read about them. It’s hard to experience the routine setbacks and difficulties of a normal life all day and then face some of history’s saddest moments just before bedtime. Therefore, I spent several days parked, like the Union Army before Petersburg, in front of the part of the book which addresses the Grant’s fiasco at Cold Harbor, knowing how much needless and senseless slaughter I was about to read about. Similarly, I had to put the book down before Grant’s second term, because I knew that a load of cowardly unpunished violence by racist thugs operating under the pathetically hypocritical figleaf of states’ rights was in the offing.

On the other hand, the few odd moments of Grant’s life where he gets to enjoy the hard-earned fruits of his labors are a pleasure to read. I especially enjoyed the chapter about Grant’s late life around-the-world tour, where he seemed to be having a grand old time being fussed over by the great and powerful.

This biography, and White’s, are important attempts to re-evaluate Grant in the light of the attempt to wrestle the narrative of the Civil War of the traitorous racists who have monopolized it for far too long. As such, it has to scrape away the accumulated layers of half-truth-based character assassination which has passed for Civil War historiography for far too long.

The problem with half-truths, of course, is that they are half true. Grant had a drinking problem, to which he succumbed with ever-declining regularity as he aged and spent less time alone with whiskey-swilling soldiery. Yet the problem was there. It could be (and has been) introduced to smear Grant’s every decision and policy, even those made during the long period of nearly-unbroken sobriety when he was in the White House. Similarly, Grant's maddening flaw of excessive trust in corrupt old Army buddies and other veterans pops up again and again but it should not be allowed to overshadow the fact that his administration, whatever its faults and moments of weakness, was the most benevolent to Jews, blacks, and native American of any up to, perhaps, the Presidency of Lyndon Johnson.

I recommend that you read a book about Grant sometime. He is a great flawed man, a human in flesh, and a strange mirror of the prejudices and preconceptions of others, both during his lifetime and after. It may not be necessary to read more than one. It may not be necessary to read either of 2017’s brick-like re-evaluations of Grant’s legacy, if fat books are not your thing. Grant’s own memoirs, written in extraordinary circumstances (well chronicled in this book) and available in a great Library of America edition, will tell you everything you need to know about the man, and is shorter. Whatever you read, I hope it convinces you that the hardcover hatchet jobs on Grant by the previous generation’s load of Confederacy apologists should be consigned to the garbage heap of history.

Author Ron Chernow, winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, has written a highly readable and illuminating biography of a much misunderstood figure in American history—Ulysses S. Grant. Chernow’s biography is long—959 pages of biography alone—and can only be described as panoramic and painstaking in terms of the detail that is used to illuminate each portion of Grant’s life. So—it is an extremely long read—but, I would highly recommend it nevertheless. Chernow makes this man come alive and dispels with careful research many misconceptions that many of us have been taught about Grant. And gives modern readers an American hero despite his careful acknowledgment of Grant’s weaknesses as well as strengths. To quote Chernow from the book”...Walt Whitman was mesmerized by Grant and grouped him with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the quartet of greatest Americans. “In all Homer and Shakespeare there is no fortune or personality really more picturesque or rapidly changing, more full of heroism, pathos, contrast,” he wrote.” The plain unadorned Grant had nothing stylish about him, leading sophisticated people to underrate his talents. He was a nondescript face in the crowd, the common man from the heartland raised to a higher power, who proved a simple westerner could lead a mighty army to victory and occupy the presidential chair with distinction. Dismissed as a philistine, a boor, a drunk, and an incompetent, Grant has been subjected to pernicious stereotypes that grossly impede our understanding of the man. As a contemporary newspaper sniffed, Grant was “an ignorant soldier, coarse in his taste and blunt in his perceptions, fond of money and material enjoyment and of low company.” In fact, Grant was a sensitive, complex, and misunderstood man with a shrewd mind, a wry wit, a rich fund of anecdotes, wide knowledge, and penetrating insights. Many acquaintances remembered the “silent” Grant as the most engaging raconteur they ever met. His weatherbeaten appearance during the war, when he wore simple military dress, often caked with mud, could be misleading, for an inner fineness and delicacy lay beneath the rough-hewn exterior. At the same time, Grant could be surprisingly naive and artless in business and politics.“. A portrait of a fascinating American who shaped our country is painted in this biography. Thank you Penguin Press and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book and for allowing me to review it.

Ron Chernov has, once again, written a masterful biography. Ulysses S. Grant is a fascinating figure, who I didn't know much about before reading this book. I would highly recommend this to all History buffs!

It is so nice to read a book about a successful Midwesterner especially one who is often regarded as weak, a failure and a habitual drinker. Grant, early on, was all of those things, but once he was in the Union army he rose through the ranks and became one of Lincoln's most trusted advisers. . Chernow has set the bar high for historical biographies.

Exhaustively researched but extremely readable, this book sheds new light on President Grant. Despite his faults, this is a true American hero. Another amazing effort from Ron Chernow.

Chernow’s research is so thorough but his writing style makes the wealth of factual material easy to read.

I am a very, very, VERY rare DNF reader, but life is just too short for me to spend 1000 pages on this. Chernow is meticulous and thorough, and if you've enjoyed his past biographies, you'll probably love this as well. He goes into great depth on Grant's battle and war involvement, explores his lifelong battle with alcoholism, and defends his legacy as an effective president. It's not for me, but it's well done if it's your thing.

Grant was a complex man: both brilliant and naive; overly trusting in civilian life while able to perfectly predict what others would do on the battlefield; a man who claimed to have no great political ambitions yet was a rare (at the time) two term president. Chernow reminds us of the personal connections of the generals of both the North and South- Grant attended West Point and fought in the Mexican War alongside William T. Sherman, Robert E Lee, and a veritable who's who of later Civil War leaders. The best man at his wedding was James Longstreet, who would go on to be a great Southern general in the war. Chernow also brings front and center Grant's hard work for African Americans, supporting the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, with equality and voting rights among his lifelong crusades. While Lincoln is remembered in American history as the President who ended slavery, readers of Grant will see that President U.S. Grant should be remembered as a tireless proponent of civil rights and militant enemy of the Ku Klux Klan.

Chernow doesn't turn away from Grant's failures in civilian life: his poverty before rejoining the army for the Civil War, his constant struggle with alcoholism, or Grant's repeated mistakes in trusting the wrong people in matters of finance- and occasionally in government. Grant's personal traits: pride, stubbornness, loyalty among others are shown as what made him the greatest general of his time, but also caused a steep learning curve as President.

Readers of Stephen W. Sears' Lincoln's Lieutenants will find this a perfect companion to their understanding of the generals of the Civil War, their successes and failures, radically different personalities, and their relationships with Lincoln. It continues to amaze me how individual personalities and personal ambitions shape the course of military history.

Fans of history, biographies, and military history will rejoice in this new biography of General Grant- which will stand unchallenged as his definitive biography for a long time. An easy, flowing narrative, Ron Chernow's Grant will change the average American's view of Grant forever.

Chernov is an excellent biographer and this volume lives up to his reputation.

Interesting read. I tend to like Chernow's biographies. It is not as awe inspiring as the Hamilton or Washington biographies, but it is definitely worth the read.