Grant’s America and Ours

Ulysses Grant’s was an unexpected American life, mysteriously comprehensive in its range and — the more that people have thought about him — in its meanings.

A parable of the mysteries of the ordinary, he went from poverty to presidency and back to poverty again — from obscurity and shame before the Civil War, to all that the country had to offer in the way of power and glory, and then back to ruin once more.