The Life and Legacy of Ulysses S. Grant: An Exploration of the American Icon's Triumphs and Struggles

Pf: Appears to be well researched and informative

Australia on Nov 23, 2018

bigmuzza: Having only ever read about the main American presidents, Washington, Lincoln, Kennedy etc, it was a marvellous education to read about US Grant and what a man he was!

Would highly recommend!

United Kingdom on Jun 28, 2018

John Berry: American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant
This happen to be another book recommended to me via Amazon which I am pleased to report is well worth reading. I had been meaning to read a book about Grant so the timing was just right. What I discovered was a much more complex individual than I had been lead to believe via general history one might receive via formal education. My idea had been that he was a General that used his military as an unlimited resource, a man that had a terrible drinking problem throughout his life and a Presidency that was fraught with fraud and scandal. Mr. White clearly painted a picture of an individual that was so much more and nothing like he has been portrayed.

I do tend to be fascinated by Grant's rise to power after being a retired Army Captain (retiring under suspicious circumstances which may have involved drinking) to failing as a farmer, lumber man and briefly working for his younger brother in the family tannery, to President of the United States. His wife's family was well do do in St. Louis with ownership of many slaves of which the Grants came to own three as a gift from his wife's father! Grant entered the war...

United States on Oct 23, 2017

Carmel Suttor: This is an important addition to the recent body of work that aims to restore the reputation of Ulysses S. Grant, who was unjustly denigrated for the better part of a century. White gives us insight into the character of the man through the detailed anecdotes about his life: the young Captain, still in his twenties, caring for hundreds of cholera-stricken passengers in a central American jungle, the very young lieutenant pressed to the side of a running horse as he races through Mexican gunfire. The Grant who emerges in this book is an honest and fair-minded man with a sly sense of humour. White brings out the many contradictions in Grant: a sensitive man who hated blood sports, he was the Union general capable of waging the aggressive war necessary to defeat the Confederacy.

Canada on Aug 27, 2017

GATTU: Great story.historyofthecivilwargeneralwhowentontobecometheeighteenthpresidentoftheunitedstatesfortwoterms.

India on Jan 29, 2017

Rule 62 Ken: There have been a number of biographies of Ulysses Grant in recent years and they have been almost entirely (if not entirely) positive in their assessment of the life of the famed Union General who went on to become the 18th President of the United States. Author Ronald C. White continues this trend. His strong admiration (bordering on adulation) for his subject appears justified, as White ably makes the case that Grant deserves to be admired and revered for his courage, his principled leadership, his humility, his fairness, and his integrity.

White presents a complete portrait of the life of Ulysses Grant, telling us about Grant's Puritan ancestry before leading us through Grant's birth and his boyhood, his time as a cadet at West Point, his service in the Mexican War, his peace time military career, his lost years between his two periods of military service, his fascinating careers as the most prominent and most successful Union general, his service during Reconstruction, his two terms as President, and his eventful life after the White House. Ulysses Grant led a life like no other American, and while it takes the author 657 pages to tell Grant's life...

Canada on Dec 05, 2016

Sotto voce: For those unfamiliar with the biographer Ronald. C. White, his last biography  A. Lincoln: A Biography  was simply magnificent. White is a biographer to pay attention to for 21st century socio-rhetorical high fidelity of 19th century history.

Having previously read Grant’s own autobiographical and papers. Grant was no slouch at literary skill. White includes the writings of an extensive number of Grants real time contemporaries in his timeline to position the reader to consider all sides of Grant in his time. You'll find what Grant's contemporaries wrote on the very day and both favorable and critical. The scheming of his lessers to snatch a piece of the Grant legacy is a fascinating story in the whole.

In his time, Grant was compared to Lincoln and Washington as the greatest of patriots and after White’s carefully researched narrative, one can again wonder where such a titan of the US could have come from.

White’s Ulysses is a triumph. Geo Washington by comparison has slavery corrosion about him. As did Jefferson. Neither would I enjoy a 'friendship' actually. Lincoln was not of that political genre and...

United States on Nov 13, 2016