Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Waugh (history, Univ. of California, Los Angeles) explores the gap between historical perspective and collective memory that often shifts our sense of events or of figures within political, social, and economic contexts. Drawing upon Thomas L. Connelly's groundbreaking The Marble Man: Robert E. Lee and His Image in American Society and David W. Blight's more recent acclaimed Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, she delves into the legacy of Ulysses S. Grant. Considering why, in the next century, Grant disappeared from popular memory, Waugh argues that after World War I a disillusioned population shunned the brutalities of war that Grant represented and that he was overshadowed by Robert E. Lee, who became closely identified with the Lost Cause interpretation of the war. By the early 1990s, Grant's reputation began to rise again as Lost Cause themes were dispelled and Grant's tomb was reopened to the public after a restoration. Ken Burns's award-winning Civil War documentary also showed Grant sympathetically. Verdict This is a well-researched and scholarly work that Civil War enthusiasts will enjoy, provided they understand it's not meant to be a military or presidential biography. It would be an excellent supplementary text for graduate students and a welcome addition for academic libraries.-Gayla Koerting, Nebraska State Hist. Soc., Lincoln (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

Over the past two decades, the list of books examining the life and times of Ulysses S. Grant as general and/or president continues to grow. Waugh's work joins this list in an impressive study using the techniques of history and memory. Her book deserves to be at the top of anyone's list, scholar or general reader, interested in the Grant story. The author's grasp of source material, from popular culture to the weightiest military tome, is amazing. For example, Waugh (UCLA) demonstrates how popular culture contributed to embedding in the American mind that Grant was a drunkard, though close examination of the sources suggests otherwise. Waugh is able to explain why Grant, a giant in the late-19th century on a par with George Washington or Abraham Lincoln in the popular mind, is more often compared to Warren G. Harding in popular and historical literature by the 1930s. Grant died on August 8, 1885. The nation mourned, 250,000 people viewed his coffin over two days, and 1.5 million people lined the streets for his funeral procession. Waugh's book demonstrates that the giant is slowly being reborn. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. D. L. Wilson Southern Illinois University Carbondale