Chernow Ron - Grant

Praise for Ron Chernows Grant

This is a good time for Ron Chernows 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 Grants life and to those who have read his memoirs or any of several previous biographies.... For all its scholarly and literary strengths, this books greatest service is to remind us of Grants 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 countrys 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, TheNew York Times Book Review

Another classic in the Ron Chernow oeuvre... Eminently readable but thick with import... Grant hits like a Mack truck of knowledge.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic

Marvelous... Chernows biography gives us a deep look into this complicated but straightforward man, and into a troubled time in our history that still echoes today.

Thomas E. Ricks, Foreign Policy

Chernow rewards the reader with considerable life-and-times background, clear-eyed perspective, sympathy that stops short of sycophancy, and gritty and intimate details.

The Boston Globe

Grant is vast and panoramic in ways that history buffs will love. Books of its caliber by writers of Chernows 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 Grants times eerily resemble our own.... Indispensable.

The New York Times

Arriving at a moment when excitable individuals and hysterical mobs are demonstrating crudeness in assessing historical figures, Chernows book is a tutorial on measured, mature judgment.... Chernows Grant is a gift to a nation much in need of measured judgments about its past.

George Will, The Washington Post

Chernow tells all this rapidly and well; his talent is suited to Grants story.... He is extraordinarily good on what could be called, unpejoratively, the Higher Gossip of Historyhe can uncannily detect the actual meaning beneath social interactions.... Fluent and intelligent.

Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker

A triumph: a sympathetic but clear-eyed biography that will be the starting point for all future studies of this enigmatic man.... Chernow [is] one of the finest biographical writers in American history.

Foreign Affairs

Ron Chernow... has written an expansive new life of Grant. It is a work of striking anecdotes, skillful pacing, and poignant judgments.

David W. Blight, New York Review of Books

Ron Chernows monumental biography of the eighteenth president is essential to understanding our race-conscious nation today.

Bloomberg

Chernows Grant is as relevant a modern figure as his Hamilton. His Grant is a reminder that the very best American leaders can be, and should be, self-made, hard working, modest for themselves and ambitious for their nation, future looking, tolerant, and with a heart for the poor.... Chernow turns the life of yet another... misunderstood figure from U.S. currency into narrative gold.

Slate

Ron Chernows biography reminds our twenty-first-century selves of the distinction between character and personality.

National Review

Chernows special gift is to present a complete and compelling picture of his subjects. His biographies do not offer up marble deities on a pedestal; he gives us flesh and blood human beings and helps us understand what made them tick. Just as he did with George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, Chernow brings Ulysses S. Grant to life. At the end of the book, the reader feels as if he knows the man.... A magnificent book... This is richly rewarding and compelling reading.

Christian Science Monitor

In 1948, a survey of historians ranked Ulysses S. Grant as the second-worst American president.... But recent surveys have been kinder. Grant now lands in the middle, thanks to his extraordinarily progressive work on race relations.... Ron Chernows 1,100-page biography may crown Grants restoration.... Mr. Chernow argues persuasively that Grant has been badly misunderstood.

The Economist

Chernow writes definitive biography of Ulysses S. Grant... [An] essential read... Restores Grant to the pantheon of great Americans.

Newsday

Grants true story needed desperately to be told. Thanks to a great historian, it has.

Chris Matthews, Parade Magazine

Reading Ron Chernows new biography, a truly mammoth examination of the life of Ulysses S. Grant, one is struck by the humanityboth the pitiful frailty and the incredible strengthof its subject.

Philadelphia Inquirer

Masterful and often poignant... Chernows gracefully written biography, which promises to be the definitive work on Grant for years to come, is fully equal to the mans remarkable story.

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Reading this compelling book, its hard to imagine that well continue to define Grant by these scandals rather than all he accomplished in winning the war and doing his best to make peace, on inclusive terms that would be fair to all.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Chernows genius lies in his unparalleled mastery of storytelling. Quite simply, he is a biographers biographer who sets the standard for others to follow.

Amanda Foreman, The Spectator

Chernows new book is the latest and most far-reaching assessment [of Grant]. He is an indefatigable researcher with a wonderfully readable narrative style. He is able to convey with clarity the complex details of military campaigns and political developments.

Eric Foner, The Times Literary Supplement (London)

Whats most compelling about Grant is the authors search for the keys to Grants personality. If Mr. Chernow cant completely solve the riddle of the Sphinx-like Ulysses, he does succeed in giving us as complete a portrait of him as were likely to see for a long time.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Ron Chernow is the leading biographer of our era.... His latest biography, Grant, presents a clear and meticulously researched narrative of one of Americas greatest military leaders and presidents.

Global Atlanta

Ron Chernow has written acclaimed biographies of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton.... His latest book, Grant, cements his reputation as Americas preeminent historical biographer. Upon finishing the book, the reader will feel privileged to have spent time with one of Americas true heroes whose virtues far surpassed his faults.

Lincoln Journal Star

Once I began Grant, I had trouble putting it down each evening. If the point of a great historical book is to have a reader totally rethink their predisposed biases about an event or subject, Grant clearly falls into that category.

The Lowell Sun

Ron Chernows Grant is an exceedingly readable, exhaustively researched masterpiece that captures the many extraordinary facets of a genuinely modest and self-effacing giant in American history.

General David Petraeus, The Wall Street Journal