The Christian Science Monitor

'Grant' vigorously portrays its subject as a great military leader, champion of rights, honest man

The conventional wisdom about Ulysses S. Grant is that he was a first-rate general and a fourth-rate president. Indeed, historians and political scientists have traditionally labeled his two terms in office as a “failure” or close to it. But that legacy is being reassessed. 

In recent years, two historians – Jean Edward Smith and Ronald White – have authored well-received books which argued that Grant was, in fact, a great military leader and a better president than we realize. That argument has been vigorously and extensively expanded in , a magnificent book by distinguished biographer Ron Chernow. Indeed, after reading this deeply researched and superbly written volume, the reader will understand why Walt Whitman put Grant,

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