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Narrated by:
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Mark Bramhall
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By:
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Ron Chernow
About this listen
The #1 New York Times bestseller and New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of 2017
“Eminently readable but thick with import . . . Grant hits like a Mack truck of knowledge.”—Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic
Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Chernow returns with a sweeping and dramatic portrait of one of our most compelling generals and presidents, Ulysses S. Grant.
Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and an inept businessman, or as the triumphant but brutal Union general of the Civil War. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing him, as Chernow shows in his masterful biography, the first to provide a complete understanding of the general and president whose fortunes rose and fell with dizzying speed and frequency.
Before the Civil War, Grant was flailing. His business ventures had ended dismally, and despite distinguished service in the Mexican War he ended up resigning from the army in disgrace amid recurring accusations of drunkenness. But in war, Grant began to realize his remarkable potential, soaring through the ranks of the Union army, prevailing at the battle of Shiloh and in the Vicksburg campaign, and ultimately defeating the legendary Confederate general Robert E. Lee. Along the way, Grant endeared himself to President Lincoln and became his most trusted general and the strategic genius of the war effort. Grant’s military fame translated into a two-term presidency, but one plagued by corruption scandals involving his closest staff members.
More important, he sought freedom and justice for black Americans, working to crush the Ku Klux Klan and earning the admiration of Frederick Douglass, who called him “the vigilant, firm, impartial, and wise protector of my race.” After his presidency, he was again brought low by a dashing young swindler on Wall Street, only to resuscitate his image by working with Mark Twain to publish his memoirs, which are recognized as a masterpiece of the genre.
With lucidity, breadth, and meticulousness, Chernow finds the threads that bind these disparate stories together, shedding new light on the man whom Walt Whitman described as “nothing heroic... and yet the greatest hero.” Chernow’s probing portrait of Grant's lifelong struggle with alcoholism transforms our understanding of the man at the deepest level. This is America's greatest biographer, bringing movingly to life one of our finest but most underappreciated presidents. The definitive biography, Grant is a grand synthesis of painstaking research and literary brilliance that makes sense of all sides of Grant's life, explaining how this simple Midwesterner could at once be so ordinary and so extraordinary.
Named one of the best books of the year by Goodreads • Amazon • The New York Times • Newsday • BookPage • Barnes and Noble • Wall Street Journal
©2017 Ron Chernow (P)2017 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Editorial reviews
Editors Select, October 2017
I always thought Grant was a mediocre general and a lackluster president. I now know how wrong I was! As a general, Grant was the epitome of military strategy and preparedness; after all, the Civil War didn’t win itself. As president, Grant strove to heal the nation’s rifts after the Civil War, using federal power to try to crush the KKK. Ron Chernow tells a fascinating tale of one man’s ever-present humanity against the backdrop of far-reaching historic events. Mark Bramhall’s energetic performance makes the audiobook fly. Thank you, President Grant, for all you did to stop the horrors of Reconstruction; I stand corrected. —Christina, Audible Editor
Critic reviews
“This is a good time for Ron Chernow’s 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 Grant’s life and to those who have read his memoirs or any of several previous biographies . . . For all its scholarly and literary strengths, this book’s greatest service is to remind us of Grant’s 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 country’s 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, New York Times Book Review
“Grant is vast and panoramic in ways that history buffs will love. Books of its caliber by writers of Chernow’s 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 Grant’s times eerily resemble our own . . . Indispensable.”—The New York Times
“Chernow tells all this rapidly and well; his talent is suited to Grant’s story . . . He is extraordinarily good on what could be called, unpejoratively, the Higher Gossip of History—he can uncannily detect the actual meaning beneath social interactions . . . Fluent and intelligent.”—Adam Gopnik, New Yorker
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- How Truman Emerged from Roosevelt's Shadow and Remade the World
- By: David L. Roll
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 20 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Spanning the years of transition, 1944 to 1948, Ascent to Power illuminates Truman’s struggles to emerge as president in his own right. Yet, from a relatively unknown Missouri senator to the most powerful man on Earth, Truman’s legacy transcends. With his come-from-behind campaign in the fall of 1948, his courageous civil rights advocacy, and his role in liberating millions from militarist governments and brutal occupations, Truman’s decisions during these pivotal years changed the course of the world in ways so significant we live with them today.
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Truman defeated Republican use of Dark Psychology
- By sunao mind☯️ heart ❤️ on 01-30-25
By: David L. Roll
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Hoover
- An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times
- By: Kenneth Whyte
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 27 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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The definitive biography of Herbert Hoover, one of the most remarkable Americans of the 20th century - a revisionist account that will forever change the way Americans understand the man, his presidency, and his battle against the Great Depression. A poor orphan who built a fortune, a great humanitarian, a president elected in a landslide and then routed in the next election, arguably the father of both New Deal liberalism and modern conservatism - Herbert Hoover is also one of our least understood presidents.
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What a fascinating story!
- By Dan Ryan on 11-18-17
By: Kenneth Whyte
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Assyria
- The Rise and Fall of the World's First Empire
- By: Eckart Frahm
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 15 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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At its height in 660 BCE, the kingdom of Assyria stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. It was the first empire the world had ever seen. Here, historian Eckart Frahm tells the epic story of Assyria and its formative role in global history. Assyria’s wide-ranging conquests have long been known from the Hebrew Bible and later Greek accounts. But nearly two centuries of research now permit a rich picture of the Assyrians and their empire beyond the battlefield.
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Too much volume change in narration
- By Erin on 06-19-24
By: Eckart Frahm
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The Making of the Atomic Bomb
- 25th Anniversary Edition
- By: Richard Rhodes
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 37 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Here for the first time, in rich human, political, and scientific detail, is the complete story of how the bomb was developed, from the turn-of-the-century discovery of the vast energy locked inside the atom to the dropping of the first bombs on Japan. Few great discoveries have evolved so swiftly - or have been so misunderstood. From the theoretical discussions of nuclear energy to the bright glare of Trinity, there was a span of hardly more than 25 years.
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Beware limitations of the reader
- By JFanson on 01-01-19
By: Richard Rhodes
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Without Precedent
- Chief Justice John Marshall and His Times
- By: Joel Richard Paul
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 17 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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No member of America's founding generation had a greater impact on the Constitution and the Supreme Court than John Marshall, and no one did more to preserve the delicate unity of the fledgling United States. From the nation's founding in 1776 and for the next 40 years, Marshall was at the center of every political battle. As Chief Justice of the United States - the longest-serving in history—he established the independence of the judiciary and the supremacy of the federal Constitution and courts.
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Scholarly and Accessible
- By Diana Black Kennedy on 03-01-18
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The Emperor of All Maladies
- A Biography of Cancer
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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The Emperor of All Maladies reveals the many faces of an iconic, shape-shifting disease that is the defining plague of our generation. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance but also of hubris, arrogance, paternalism, and misperception, all leveraged against a disease that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out "war against cancer".
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Incredible
- By S.R.E. on 03-02-16
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Vicksburg
- Grant's Campaign That Broke the Confederacy
- By: Donald L. Miller
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 21 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Vicksburg, Mississippi, was the last stronghold of the Confederacy on the Mississippi River. It prevented the Union from using the river for shipping between the Union-controlled Midwest and New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. The Union navy tried to take Vicksburg, which sat on a high bluff overlooking the river, but couldn't do it. It took Grant's army and Admiral David Porter's navy to successfully invade Mississippi and lay siege to Vicksburg, forcing the city to surrender.
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A superb account of the entire campaign
- By Mary on 08-26-20
By: Donald L. Miller
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Washington
- A Life
- By: Ron Chernow
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 41 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In Washington: A Life celebrated biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation. This crisply paced narrative carries the reader through his troubled boyhood, his precocious feats in the French and Indian War, his creation of Mount Vernon, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention, and his magnificent performance as America's first president.
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A sad day when my book was done!
- By ButterLegume on 12-13-10
By: Ron Chernow
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The Three Lives of James Madison
- Genius, Partisan, President
- By: Noah Feldman
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 34 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Over the course of his life, James Madison changed the United States three times: First, he designed the Constitution, led the struggle for its adoption and ratification, then drafted the Bill of Rights. As an older, cannier politician, he cofounded the original Republican party, setting the course of American political partisanship. Finally, having pioneered a foreign policy based on economic sanctions, he took the United States into a high-risk conflict, becoming the first wartime president and, despite the odds, winning.
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Cogently organized, meticulously balanced
- By Diana Black Kennedy on 06-15-18
By: Noah Feldman
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Conquistadores
- A New History of Spanish Discovery and Conquest
- By: Fernando Cervantes
- Narrated by: Luis Soto
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Over the few short decades that followed Christopher Columbus' first landing in the Caribbean in 1492, Spain conquered the two most powerful civilizations of the Americas: the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru. Hernán Cortés, Francisco Pizarro, and the other explorers and soldiers who took part in these expeditions dedicated their lives to seeking political and religious glory, helping to build an empire unlike any the world had ever seen. But centuries later, these conquistadors have become the stuff of nightmares.
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A fresh mature perspective on the Spanish conquest
- By Chencheno111 on 03-19-22
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The Baseball 100
- By: Joe Posnanski
- Narrated by: Cary Hite
- Length: 30 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Longer than Moby-Dick and nearly as ambitious,The Baseball 100 is a one-of-a-kind work by award-winning sportswriter and lifelong student of the game Joe Posnanski that tells the story of the sport through the remarkable lives of its 100 greatest players. In the book’s introduction, Pulitzer Prize-winning commentator George F. Will marvels, “Posnanski must already have lived more than 200 years. How else could he have acquired such a stock of illuminating facts and entertaining stories about the rich history of this endlessly fascinating sport?”
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Just OK. Too Tangential & Distracting
- By Matthew R. on 01-21-23
By: Joe Posnanski
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The Man Who Ran Washington
- The Life and Times of James A. Baker III
- By: Peter Baker, Susan Glasser
- Narrated by: Michael Quinlan
- Length: 26 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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For a quarter-century, from the end of Watergate to the aftermath of the Cold War, no Republican won the presidency without his help or ran the White House without his advice. James Addison Baker III was the indispensable man for four presidents because he understood better than anyone how to make Washington work at a time when America was shaping events around the world. The Man Who Ran Washington is a pause-resisting portrait of a power broker who influenced America's destiny for generations.
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We Need Baker Now More Than Ever
- By @Gazi2a on 01-08-21
By: Peter Baker, and others
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Path Lit by Lightning
- By: David Maraniss
- Narrated by: David Maraniss
- Length: 23 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Jim Thorpe rose to world fame as a mythic talent who excelled at every sport. Most famously, he won gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. A member of the Sac and Fox Nation, he was an All-American football player at the Carlisle Indian School, the star of the first class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and played major league baseball for John McGraw’s New York Giants. Even in a golden age of sports celebrities, he was one of a kind.
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Authors can’t always narate
- By SH on 09-05-22
By: David Maraniss
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Friends Divided
- John Adams and Thomas Jefferson
- By: Gordon S. Wood
- Narrated by: James Lurie
- Length: 17 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Thomas Jefferson and John Adams could scarcely have come from more different worlds or been more different in temperament. Jefferson, the optimist with enough faith in the innate goodness of his fellow man to be democracy's champion, was an aristocratic Southern slave owner while Adams, the overachiever from New England's rising middling classes, painfully aware he was no aristocrat, was a skeptic about popular rule and a defender of a more elitist view of government.
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A Great Read
- By Jean on 12-22-17
By: Gordon S. Wood
Ron Chernow did such an amazing detailed job in the life of Grant - that I feel like I know him. There are so many small accounts noted in his life, that it makes you like him & respect him even more. I appreciate the first 6 hours into it talking more in depth of his life, his family, his in-laws, how he felt, etc. I wanted to 'know' Grant more than the Civil War General and President.
During my recent trip to DC, Virginia & Gettysburg = I was told many personal stories (and seen the artifacts) by the staff at each destination of many persons in regards to this war. My mouth was open most of this trip due to all the details I was learning about everything and everyone - I was shocked. I was obsessed with the Civil War, WWII and Vietnam in school and thought I knew much....Nope! This book is the sort of thing I believe we all need to learn in History classes. It brings that time era, the circumstances, and one man's journey thru this all to life.
I truly hope he writes a book on Robert E. Lee next
Ron Chernow should be writing for our schools
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Ranks at the top of best biographies
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Lives up to the hype
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Great book
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Chernow takes an often overlooked President and breathes new life into him. He does not look over his faults nor does he over praise his subject, making sure to put everything into its proper context. Use of multiple primary sources from telegrams and letters, Grant's memoirs, Mark Twain's opinions, diary entries from Grant's family/friends/enemies/frenemies, and contemporary newspaper clippings backs up Chernow's research every step of the way. This will no doubt be the go-to Grant biography for many many years to come.
Mark Bramhall does an excellent job handling multiple historical figure voices, including Ulysses Grant, Julia Grant, Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, and Mark Twain. He handled multiple different accents such as Western, European and Southern well; I did not think the female voices were too foppish or silly which is a real plus. Bramhall understands pace and I was impressed by his ability to carry such a long work.
Because this was over 48 hours long, however, I could not download onto my phone in the Audible App and had to listen on my computer, so it took me longer to get through. The King James Bible audiobook was split into 10 parts, so perhaps Audible can make long bios like Chernow's "Grant" easier to listen to on-the-go.
I look forward to Chernow's next grand work. Perhaps Abraham Lincoln or Robert E. Lee?
Chernow has done it again!
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Narrator was horrible
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This was an excellent book.
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Simply incredible
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Ron Chernow does a great job of telling both sides of the events surround Grant. Those both that were for and those against him.
More than duty
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I’ve read several other books on General/President Grant prior to this one, and each has helped me to better understand the different facets of this important character in the story of our nation. Certainly, much has been written about his leadership during the Civil War and his presidency. Chernow, as should be expected, spent the bulk of the book on these two periods of Grant’s life. However, where the book really shined for me was in the description of Grant following all of this, in his retirement years (if they can even be called that). Much like Edmund Morris did for Theodore Roosevelt in his, “Colonel Roosevelt”, the final book in a trilogy of Roosevelt’s life; Chernow brought light to Grant’s post-presidential life.
The most amazing aspect of this part of Grant’s final years, at least to me, was his nearly three-years of travelling which took him literally around the globe. What started off as a life-long ambition, to see some of Europe in his personal time, turned into a series of adventure in one country after the other, with Grant serving in a near-formal representative capacity for his nation. He visited Queen Victoria in Buckingham palace, talked with Victor Hugo in Paris (about Napoleonic tactics), enjoyed many cigar-smoke-laced discussions with Otto Von Bismark in Berlin and visited the full gambit of European Grand Tour destinations so famous in the 19th century. But it grew from there. He was invited to travel to Africa, the Middle East, India, China, Japan and many other destinations. In each case he served as diplomat and representative, accomplishing many amazing things, to include a treaty between China and Japan to resolve a conflict between these two nations. These are things which I really never read about before, and to which I am thankful that Chernow spent so much time.
Of course, Chernow spent much time on aspects of Grant that have been so spun over in the past. His alcoholic tendencies – very real, but something which has been vastly overblown, and to which he was largely able to control over time. His leadership – in the military and as President. His great fault – trusting people in his life, especially during the Presidential and post-Presidential years, who would ultimately betray him. Grant was a very trusting person when it came to his friends. Loyal to a fault. Many of detractors, who would claim Grant himself to be guilty of corruption (he did not), could more accurately point to a few in his administration rather than to Grant himself. Historians have not always been kind to Grant on this count; however, Chernow really helps to better define this aspect of his character.
This is an excellent read which I would whole-heartedly recommend.
Chernow's Latest Historical Tome - Fantastic!
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