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Title: Ulysses S. Grant: Soldier & President by Geoffrey Perret ISBN: 0-679-44766-0 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 01 September, 1997 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.67 (42 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Poorly paced and poorly researched
Comment: I won't give this book a paltry one star as others below have done. It's not at the bottom of the barrel, just close. The problem is that Perret is not an historian of the Civil War. He is not a Bud Robertson, Krick, McPherson or Gallagher. In order to write a good biography of Grant, you have to have a solid foundation of his military tactics and strategy. Perret doesn't have this and makes it obvious. The book is not badly written, I thought it was interesting in places. Maybe a bit overblown sometimes. There is no great biography of Grant which is surprising considering he was quite a fascinating fellow and horribly misunderstood. I think the people writing the reviews are fanatics on Grant and resent all the mistakes. I can scarcely blame them, the errors are outrageously numerous. I still think Bruce Catton's books, though 30 years old, still sparkle. This book does not.
Rating: 1
Summary: Facts? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Facts!
Comment: This book is truly an astonishing piece of work. Considering its grotesque factual errors and bizarre misreadings of source material (more than I have ever seen in a single work of non-fiction,) the pompous writing style, the author's grating tendency to make childishly snide (and irrelevant) side comments, and--most bafflingly--the remarkable hatchet-job he does on Grant's wife Julia, I think I can state unhesitatingly that this is the most thoroughly unprofessional biography of anyone I have ever read. I find myself genuinely baffled that Perret evidently still has a career as a historian.
As appalled as I am by the thought that readers who had no prior knowledge about Grant will be led to take some of this tripe seriously, I am even more stunned by reviewers who state unblushingly that Perret's allergy to accuracy does not matter, as long as he is pro-Grant and writes in what is, to them, an appealing writing style! There are few people who defend Grant more wholeheartedly than I do (hey, I even maintain he was a pretty good President,) but I believe that a bad defense of USG can, in the long run, be as damaging to his reputation as no defense at all. My advice to Grant neophytes? Read the man's own words, in his acclaimed memoirs and fascinating private letters, as well as first person accounts like "Campaigning With Grant," and give this silliness a wide berth.
And those cracks of his about Julia REALLY set my teeth on edge.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Fabulous Biography
Comment: There are already several reviews of this book printed here, with which I agree heartily, so I'll keep my comments brief. Perret's "Ulysses S. Grant, Soldier and President," is the twelfth book on Grant that I've read (I can't seem to get enough of this topic). Perret's writing is crisp and intelligent. He doesn't drag out his thesis in long jumbled sentences, rather, he keeps his reader focused on the point he is trying to make on each phase of Grant's personal and professional life. He exposes flaws in previous Grant biographies by proving their lack of documented evidence and holding the authors to task for their shoddy scholarship. At the same time, he does not give the impression that he intends to "show up" other Grant biographers, he just sets the record straight.
I recommend this biography to anyone who wants to understand America in the Nineteenth century. Ulysses S. Grant is the key: he saved the Union, he fought for the rights of the freedmen during Reconstruction, he was always honest-though he did make his share of mistakes - and when he erred, he accepted the responsibility for his mistakes. Grant was a devoted family man, was loyal to his friends and forgiving of his enemies. He was humble and appeared ordinary, yet he achieved amazing things. Perret's most insightful point in this work is his statement that Grant's religion was patiotism. I agree. No one ever loved this country more.
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Title: Andrew Johnson: A Biography by Hans L. Trefousse ISBN: 0393317420 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: 01 December, 1997 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865 by Brooks D. Simpson, Brooks D. Simpson ISBN: 0395659949 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company Pub. Date: 21 February, 2000 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Stalin : The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore ISBN: 1400042305 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 13 April, 2004 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: Lincoln's War: The Untold Story of America's Greatest President As Commander in Chief by Geoffrey Perret ISBN: 0375507388 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 01 April, 2004 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 by Brooks D. Simpson ISBN: 0807819662 Publisher: University of North Carolina Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 1991 List Price(USD): $45.00 |
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