Ulysses S. Grant has been underestimated for too long, and Ron Chernow's biography restores one of America's greatest generals and most consequential presidents to his proper place. Grant rose from obscurity to command Union forces to victory in the Civil War, accepted Lee's surrender at Appomattox, and served two terms as president during which he crushed the Ku Klux Klan and fought for the rights of freed people. His reputation suffered from a Gilded Age backlash and Lost Cause mythmaking that elevated his opponents. Chernow, who previously wrote acclaimed biographies of Washington and Hamilton, brings the same exhaustive research and narrative skill to Grant's life. He traces Grant's complicated relationship with alcohol, which nearly derailed his military career; his partnership with Sherman and Lincoln; his friendship with Mark Twain, who published Grant's memoirs as the dying general raced to finish them. Those memoirs, written while Grant was suffering from throat cancer, are recognized as a masterpiece of the genre, but Chernow argues that Grant's entire life rewards attention. The biography runs to nearly a thousand pages but remains engaging throughout. Readers interested in the Civil War, Reconstruction, or American presidency will find Chernow's reassessment compelling.