A review by chrisr88
Grant by Ron Chernow

informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

Grant is massive and not just in terms of page number, but also the amount of attention it pays to Grant’s life. Starting with Grant’s childhood, Chernow does a great job of painting Grant’s personality and mentality and how it developed through both wars, his presidency and his short but interesting post-presidency. Even though I found some of the war sections to be tedious, I appreciate the amount of research that went into describing day to day fighting and did find some of the odd details to be funny. For me, the book was at its best when Grant was more human than president, e.g. death of people around him, his struggle against reconstruction, his post-presidency. I especially enjoyed the look into Grant’s psyche through his dealings with his parents and father in law and how it affected him throughout his political career and personal life. I really enjoyed the book and enjoyed most of it, although I will say the alcohol issue gets addressed and that’s fine, but it became annoying when pages were dedicated to whether Grant was really drinking or if was just a blatant lie. It’s nice to dispel the libel that has been spewed mostly by enemies, but we don’t need a mention every 50 pages.