Personal Memoirs of U S Grant

Rating:
Summary: My Family is American...
Review: I was concerned that a book written over one hundred years ago might seem a bit dated in it's style. I need not have worried, except for a very few instances such as spelling reconnaissance > reconnoissance and the word embarassed used as meaning "to threaten," this book could have been written yesterday. When it first came out in 1885 it was a great success. The informed reader will quickly realize that this was not out of sympathy for Grant, the great general who was dying of throat cancer while writing it, but well deserved recognition of a great autobiography. I have read some of the better modern civil war historians such as Shelby Foote, Bruce Catton, and Winston Groom; Grant's book ranks up there with the very best.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Reading
Review: I'm a little irritated at the usually terrific Modern Library. They have hatched a new series of volumes on "War", with a general introduction by Caleb Carr. Apparently, however, aside from the slick covers, no attempt was made to provide the reader with any original material, such as maps, appendices, notes or other scholarly material. The edition of Grant's memoirs contains a new, curt, unhelpful introduction by Geoffrey Perret. (Perret offhandedly mentions that Grant's memory diverges from the facts on more than one occasion, but makes no attempt to further elucidate a matter that would obviously be of high interest to the reader.)The maps are old, crabbed and often difficult to follow; the geographically-challenged reader, such as myself, is often obliged to consult a road atlas to follow the Western campaigns. The memoirs themselves are terrific. Grant's plain, homely soldier's style, with dashes of self-deprecation and dry irony, is engrossing reading.