Review: Grant

Grant by Ron Chernow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow. Ok, Grant is the most underrated president I've read about thus far (I'm reading in chronological order). I'm not saying he's the best, but just the most underrated. I knew he was a stellar general, but the only other things I new about him before were that he had a drinking problem and (I had assumed) was a failure as a president.

"Americans today know little about the terrorism that engulfed the South during Grant's presidency. It has been suppressed by a strange national amnesia. The Klan's ruthless reign is a dark, buried chapter in American history. The Civil War is far better known that its brutal aftermath." (P. 857)

I remember a TV show in the 80s called North and South, which discussed two fictional families, one from the North one from the South, during the civil war. It seems like they could have just discussed Grant's family. He married a Southern belle, in all senses of the word, and her father was a slave owning fervent southern democrat, while Grant's father was extremely anti-slavery. Of course, Grant didn't just fight in the civil war, but was the chief general, so his story is a lot more interesting than the TV show's.

I'm amazed at how quickly the North was ready to appease the South in order to make sure that their reintroduction back into the Union went smoothly. Lincoln didn't want any celebrations in the Northern camp after the treaty signed in Appomattox, he also allowed Confederate commanders to retain sidearms, the farmers to go back to work with their horses, and played Dixieland back at the capitol (saying "It's our country's song now"). All in all a sound strategy, probably, until Johnson went to his extremes I guess.

The sections talking about white mobs killing, lynching and massacring blacks and white republicans right after the war in the South are some of the most maddening things I've read.

On the other hand I was very interested to read about Akerman. A confederate soldier who then turned Republican, served under Grant, and was a whole-hearted defender of reconstruction.
I also sort of want to read more about Ferdinand Ward, the wall-streeter who swindled Grant out of his family's life savings. And apparently Ward's great-grandson has written a biography of him.

Interesting tidbits:
Grant was dead against violence. He said he never looked forward to battle, and apparently couldn't stand to see animals mistreated or hunted.
Grant acted as a go-between between China and Japan during the Ryukyu islands debacle, apparently helping both to come to a peaceable conclusion and avoid war (although Japan still took over the islands, which became Okinawa).

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Review: The Warburgs: The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family

The Warburgs: The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family by Ron Chernow
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was my third Ron Chernow book, and the other two were also about banking dynasties. As with the others, and even more so, we are dealing we a family lasting several centuries, with cousins branching off into extended families, and many people sharing the same name. However, I thought Chernow did an excellent job at keeping things (more or less) clear, and the main members of this family are each portrayed in vivid detail. In general it follows a chronological order, although not always, which is probably best, since, once again, it would just be a mess of cousins in different continents with similar names entering into similar financial wheelings and dealings.

Of course, Nazi Germany and the persecution of the Jews makes up a great part of the book as well, in addition to life in Germany, in the US (and somewhat in London and Sweden as well), and a broad history of finance throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

In fact, I found it very interesting to read about how Nazism crept into Germany, and how it was viewed from the perspective of a German-Jewish family, and how they felt just as German as Jewish. In fact, they were discriminated against in their own Germany for being Jewish, but then, due to their nationality (and accents), were discriminated against in London and New York for being German as well.



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