H.W. Brands

**In a grand-scale narrative history, the bestselling author of two finalists for the Pulitzer Prize now captures the decades when capitalism was at its most unbridled and a few breathtakingly wealthy businessmen utterly transformed America from an agrarian economy to a world power. ** The years between the Civil War and the end of the nineteenth century saw the wholesale transformation of America from a land of small farmers and small businessmen into an industrial giant. Driven by unfathomably wealthy and powerful businessmen like J. P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, armies of workers, both male and female, were harnessed to a new vision of massive industry. A society rooted in the soil became one based in cities, and legions of immigrants were drawn to American shores. What’s more, in accomplishing its revolution, capitalism threatened to eclipse American democracy. “What do I care about the law?” bellowed Cornelius Vanderbilt. “Hain’t I got the power?” He did, and with it he and the other capitalists reshaped every aspect of American life. In *American Colossus,* H.W. Brands portrays the emergence, in a remarkably short time, of a recognizably modern America. The capitalist revolution left not a single area or aspect of American life untouched. It roared across the South, wrenching that region from its feudal past and integrating the southern economy into the national one. It burst over the West, dictating the destruction of Native American economies and peoples, driving the exploitation of natural resources, and making the frontier of settlement a business frontier as well. It crashed across the urban landscape of the East and North, turning cities into engines of wealth and poverty, opulence and squalor. It swamped the politics of an earlier era, capturing one major party and half of the other, inspiring the creation of a third party and determining the issues over which all three waged some of the bitterest battles in American history. Brands’s spellbinding narrative beautifully depicts the oil gushers of western Pennsylvania, the rise, in Chicago, of the first skyscraper, the exploration of the Colorado River, the cattle drives of the West, and the early passionate sparks of union life. By 1900 the America he portrays is wealthier than ever, yet prosperity is precarious, inequality rampant, and democracy stretched thin. *American Colossus* is an unforgettable portrait of the years when the contest between capitalism and democracy was at its sharpest, and capitalism triumphed. ### From Publishers Weekly In this timely study, University of Texas historian Brands (Traitor to His Class) describes the rise of the great corporate capitalists after the Civil War. J. Pierpont Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie constituted an trinity of power-obsessed individuals who instinctively understood that wealth was the ultimate political weapon. They defined the cold-blooded authority of big business. Fascinating detours away from the tale of corporate empires examine the Reconstruction process in the South, the Indian Wars of the West, the opening of the Great Plains, immigration in the East, and the rise of organized labor and the agrarian reformers. Effectively, excerpts from the first-person accounts of Booker T. Washington, Black Elk, Jacob Riis, and others convey the drama of the time. Perhaps the only significant omission in this fast-paced, engrossing narrative is a tendency to dwell on political doctrines that sought to repudiate or restrain capitalism while only briefly discussing the dogma of Herbert Spencer's social Darwinism, which favored the monopolists. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ### Review **Praise for *American Colossus* **"Mr. Brands, a terrific writer who commands his material, handles this sprawling, complicated story with authority and panache. A book that might have been a worthy but boring tome turns out to be as close as serious history gets to a page turner.... *American Colossus* is a first-rate overview of one of the most important periods in American history, one without which the American Century could not have happened." **—John Steele Gordon, *The New York Times* ** "A superb new history….This is a big, brash narrative running from the Confederate surrender at Appomattox to the trust busting of Theodore Roosevelt….I read swaths of this book twice, just to savor Brands’ storytelling and mastery of detail." **—James Pressley, Bloomberg News** "Mr. Brands paints a vivid portrait of both this understudied age and those industrialists still introduced by high school teachers as ‘robber barons’: Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and J.P. Morgan….As Mr. Brands relates the tycoons’ stories, he drops some anecdotes wonderfully relevant today." —*The Wall Street Journal *"An excellent book….H. W. Brands is a smart, lively writer… [who] demonstrates, as the best historians do, that past is prologue." **—** ***Dallas Morning News** * **Praise for *The Age of Gold* ** “A fine, robust telling of one of the greatest adventure stories in history.” **—David McCullough, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of** ***John Adams * * * “A barn burner . . . Masterfully sketched historical figures, subtly developed themes, and especially well-braided stories . . . Eureka!” **—*San Francisco Chronicle** * **Praise for *Traitor to His Class* (Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography) ** “This is a rare book indeed, shedding new light and brilliant insight upon an elusive subject we thought we knew well . . . *Traitor to His Class* will quickly emerge as the finest one-volume biography of FDR.” **—David Oshinsky, winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for History** “H. W. Brands has accomplished a remarkable feat in this terrific work…. He has brought to vivid life the central figures in his story . . . while at the same time providing a fresh understanding of the rich historical context for their thoughts and actions at every step along the way.” **—Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and author of** ***Team of Rivals * * * “This may well be the best general biography of Franklin Roosevelt we will see for many years to come.” **—*Christian Science Monitor** * **Praise for *The First American * (Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography) **“H. W. Brands has given us the authoritative Franklin biography for our time.” ** —Joseph J. Ellis, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning *Founding Brothers* ** “A biography with a rich cast of secondary characters and a large and handsome stock of historical scenery…This is a Franklin to savor.” **— *Wall Street Journal* ** **Praise for *Lone Star Nation* ** “Sweeping and specific . . . [Brands] writes the story with clarity and vigor . . . .Clearly adds to our knowledge of an era when men rode to the sound of guns and honor was a comprehensible concept.” **— *Washington Post Book World* ** “Brands [is] on the path to becoming the preeminent popular historian of his generation.” **—** ***Chicago Tribune * * * **Praise for *Andrew Jackson* ** “A great story . . . Serves up everything you might expect in a ripping yarn: murderous duels, savage Indian raids, equally savage counterattacks.” **—** ***Washington Post Book World ** *“Old Hickory rides again in Brands’ elegantly written and carefully researched biography . . . A must-read!” **—Douglas Brinkley, author of *The Great Deluge* , winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award**

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, bestselling historian, and author of Our First Civil War comes “a historical spellbinder” (The Christian Science Monitor) about a trio of political giants in nineteenth-century America—and their battle to complete the unfinished work of the Founding Fathers and decide the future of our democracy. In the early 1800s, three young men strode onto the national stage, elected to Congress at a moment when the Founding Fathers were beginning to retire to their farms. Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, a champion orator known for his eloquence, spoke for the North and its business class. Henry Clay of Kentucky, as dashing as he was ambitious, embodied the hopes of the rising West. South Carolina's John Calhoun, with piercing eyes and an even more piercing intellect, defended the South and slavery. Together these heirs of Washington, Jefferson and Adams took the country to war, battled one another for the presidency and set themselves the task of finishing the work the Founders had left undone. Their rise was marked by dramatic duels, fierce debates, scandal and political betrayal. Yet each in his own way sought to remedy the two glaring flaws in the Constitution: its refusal to specify where authority ultimately rested, with the states or the nation, and its unwillingness to address the essential incompatibility of republicanism and slavery. They wrestled with these issues for four decades, arguing bitterly and hammering out political compromises that held the Union together, but only just. Then, in 1850, when California moved to join the Union as a free state, "the immortal trio" had one last chance to save the country from the real risk of civil war. But, by that point, they had never been further apart. Thrillingly and authoritatively, H. W. Brands narrates an epic American rivalry and the little-known drama of the dangerous early years of our democracy.

"A fast-paced, often riveting account of the military and political events leading up to the Declaration of Independence and those that followed during the war ... Brands does his readers a service by reminding them that division, as much as unity, is central to the founding of our nation. "—The Washington PostFrom best-selling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist H. W. Brands comes a gripping, page-turning narrative of the American Revolution that shows it to be more than a fight against the British: it was also a violent battle among neighbors forced to choose sides, Loyalist or Patriot. What causes people to forsake their country and take arms against it? What prompts their neighbors, hardly distinguishable in station or success, to defend that country against the rebels? That is the question H. W. Brands answers in his powerful new history of the American Revolution. George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were the unlikeliest of rebels. Washington in the 1770s stood at the apex of Virginia society. Franklin was more successful still, having risen from humble origins to world fame. John Adams might have seemed a more obvious candidate for rebellion, being of cantankerous temperament. Even so, he revered the law. Yet all three men became rebels against the British Empire that fostered their success. Others in the same circle of family and friends chose differently. William Franklin might have been expected to join his father, Benjamin, in rebellion but remained loyal to the British. So did Thomas Hutchinson, a royal governor and friend of the Franklins, and Joseph Galloway, an early challenger to the Crown. They soon heard themselves denounced as traitors--for not having betrayed the country where they grew up. Native Americans and the enslaved were also forced to choose sides as civil war broke out around them. After the Revolution, the Patriots were cast as heroes and founding fathers while the Loyalists were relegated to bit parts best forgotten. Our First Civil War reminds us that before America could win its revolution against Britain, the Patriots had to win a bitter civil war against family, neighbors, and friends.

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, bestselling historian, and author of Our First Civil War—and "the rare academic historian who can write like a bestselling novelist" (USA Today)—comes an irresistible portrait of an underestimated politician whose pragmatic leadership and steadfast vision transformed the nation. In his magisterial new biography, H. W. Brands brilliantly establishes Ronald Reagan as one of the two great presidents of the twentieth century, a true peer to Franklin Roosevelt. Reagan conveys with sweep and vigor how the confident force of Reagan’s personality and the unwavering nature of his beliefs enabled him to engineer a conservative revolution in American politics and play a crucial role in ending communism in the Soviet Union. Reagan shut down the age of liberalism, Brands shows, and ushered in the age of Reagan, whose defining principles are still powerfully felt today. Employing archival sources not available to previous biographers and drawing on dozens of interviews with surviving members of Reagan’s administration, Brands has crafted a richly detailed and fascinating narrative of the presidential years. He offers new insights into Reagan’s remote management style and fractious West Wing staff, his deft handling of public sentiment to transform the tax code, and his deeply misunderstood relationship with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, on which nothing less than the fate of the world turned. Look for H.W. Brands's other biographies: THE FIRST AMERICAN (Benjamin Franklin), ANDREW JACKSON, THE MAN WHO SAVED THE UNION (Ulysses S. Grant), and TRAITOR TO HIS CLASS (Franklin Roosevelt).

**National Bestseller** He was the foremost American of his day, yet today he is little more than a mythic caricature in the public imagination. Benjamin Franklin, perhaps *the* pivotal figure in colonial and revolutionary America, comes vividly to life in this masterly biography. Wit, diplomat, scientist, philosopher, businessman, inventor, and bon vivant, Benjamin Franklin was in every respect America's first Renaissance man. From penniless runaway to highly successful printer, from ardently loyal subject of Britain to architect of an alliance with France that ensured America's independence, Franklin went from obscurity to become one of the world's most admired figures, whose circle included the likes of Voltaire, Hume, Burke, and Kant. Drawing on previously unpublished letters and a host of other sources, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands has written a thoroughly engaging biography of the eighteenth-century genius. A much needed reminder of Franklin's greatness and humanity, **The First American** _ _is a work of meticulous scholarship that provides a magnificent tour of a legendary historical figure, a vital era in American life, and the countless arenas in which the protean Franklin left his legacy. *From the Trade Paperback edition.* **National Bestseller** He was the foremost American of his day, yet today he is little more than a mythic caricature in the public imagination. Benjamin Franklin, perhaps *the* pivotal figure in colonial and revolutionary America, comes vividly to life in this masterly biography. Wit, diplomat, scientist, philosopher, businessman, inventor, and bon vivant, Benjamin Franklin was in every respect America's first Renaissance man. From penniless runaway to highly successful printer, from ardently loyal subject of Britain to architect of an alliance with France that ensured America's independence, Franklin went from obscurity to become one of the world's most admired figures, whose circle included the likes of Voltaire, Hume, Burke, and Kant. Drawing on previously unpublished letters and a host of other sources, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands has written a thoroughly engaging biography of the eighteenth-century genius. A much needed reminder of Franklin's greatness and humanity, **The First American** _ _is a work of meticulous scholarship that provides a magnificent tour of a legendary historical figure, a vital era in American life, and the countless arenas in which the protean Franklin left his legacy. *From the Trade Paperback edition.* **National Bestseller** He was the foremost American of his day, yet today he is little more than a mythic caricature in the public imagination. Benjamin Franklin, perhaps *the* pivotal figure in colonial and revolutionary America, comes vividly to life in this masterly biography. Wit, diplomat, scientist, philosopher, businessman, inventor, and bon vivant, Benjamin Franklin was in every respect America's first Renaissance man. From penniless runaway to highly successful printer, from ardently loyal subject of Britain to architect of an alliance with France that ensured America's independence, Franklin went from obscurity to become one of the world's most admired figures, whose circle included the likes of Voltaire, Hume, Burke, and Kant. Drawing on previously unpublished letters and a host of other sources, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands has written a thoroughly engaging biography of the eighteenth-century genius. A much needed reminder of Franklin's greatness and humanity, **The First American** _ _is a work of meticulous scholarship that provides a magnificent tour of a legendary historical figure, a vital era in American life, and the countless arenas in which the protean Franklin left his legacy. *From the Trade Paperback edition.* **National Bestseller** He was the foremost American of his day, yet today he is little more than a mythic caricature in the public imagination. Benjamin Franklin, perhaps *the* pivotal figure in colonial and revolutionary America, comes vividly to life in this masterly biography. Wit, diplomat, scientist, philosopher, businessman, inventor, and bon vivant, Benjamin Franklin was in every respect America's first Renaissance man. From penniless runaway to highly successful printer, from ardently loyal subject of Britain to architect of an alliance with France that ensured America's independence, Franklin went from obscurity to become one of the world's most admired figures, whose circle included the likes of Voltaire, Hume, Burke, and Kant. Drawing on previously unpublished letters and a host of other sources, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands has written a thoroughly engaging biography of the eighteenth-century genius. A much needed reminder of Franklin's greatness and humanity, **The First American** _ _is a work of meticulous scholarship that provides a magnificent tour of a legendary historical figure, a vital era in American life, and the countless arenas in which the protean Franklin left his legacy. *From the Trade Paperback edition.* **National Bestseller** He was the foremost American of his day, yet today he is little more than a mythic caricature in the public imagination. Benjamin Franklin, perhaps *the* pivotal figure in colonial and revolutionary America, comes vividly to life in this masterly biography. Wit, diplomat, scientist, philosopher, businessman, inventor, and bon vivant, Benjamin Franklin was in every respect America's first Renaissance man. From penniless runaway to highly successful printer, from ardently loyal subject of Britain to architect of an alliance with France that ensured America's independence, Franklin went from obscurity to become one of the world's most admired figures, whose circle included the likes of Voltaire, Hume, Burke, and Kant. Drawing on previously unpublished letters and a host of other sources, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands has written a thoroughly engaging biography of the eighteenth-century genius. A much needed reminder of Franklin's greatness and humanity, **The First American** _ _is a work of meticulous scholarship that provides a magnificent tour of a legendary historical figure, a vital era in American life, and the countless arenas in which the protean Franklin left his legacy. *From the Trade Paperback edition.* **National Bestseller** He was the foremost American of his day, yet today he is little more than a mythic caricature in the public imagination. Benjamin Franklin, perhaps *the* pivotal figure in colonial and revolutionary America, comes vividly to life in this masterly biography. Wit, diplomat, scientist, philosopher, businessman, inventor, and bon vivant, Benjamin Franklin was in every respect America's first Renaissance man. From penniless runaway to highly successful printer, from ardently loyal subject of Britain to architect of an alliance with France that ensured America's independence, Franklin went from obscurity to become one of the world's most admired figures, whose circle included the likes of Voltaire, Hume, Burke, and Kant. Drawing on previously unpublished letters and a host of other sources, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands has written a thoroughly engaging biography of the eighteenth-century genius. A much needed reminder of Franklin's greatness and humanity, **The First American** _ _is a work of meticulous scholarship that provides a magnificent tour of a legendary historical figure, a vital era in American life, and the countless arenas in which the protean Franklin left his legacy. *From the Trade Paperback edition.* **National Bestseller** He was the foremost American of his day, yet today he is little more than a mythic caricature in the public imagination. Benjamin Franklin, perhaps *the* pivotal figure in colonial and revolutionary America, comes vividly to life in this masterly biography. Wit, diplomat, scientist, philosopher, businessman, inventor, and bon vivant, Benjamin Franklin was in every respect America’s first Renaissance man. From penniless runaway to highly successful printer, from ardently loyal subject of Britain to architect of an alliance with France that ensured America’s independence, Franklin went from obscurity to become one of the world’s most admired figures, whose circle included the likes of Voltaire, Hume, Burke, and Kant. Drawing on previously unpublished letters and a host of other sources, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands has written a thoroughly engaging biography of the eighteenth-century genius. A much needed reminder of Franklin’s greatness and humanity, **The First American** ** is a work of meticulous scholarship that provides a magnificent tour of a legendary historical figure, a vital era in American life, and the countless arenas in which the protean Franklin left his legacy. *From the Trade Paperback edition.* ### Amazon.com Review Benjamin Franklin may have been the most remarkable American ever to live: a printer, scientist, inventor, politician, diplomat, and--finally--an icon. His life was so sweeping that this comprehensive biography by H.W. Brands at times reads like a history of the United States during the 18th century. Franklin was at the center of America's transition from British colony to new nation, and was a kind of Founding Grandfather to the Founding Fathers; he was a full generation older than George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Patrick Henry, and they all viewed him with deep respect. "Of those patriots who made independence possible, none mattered more than Franklin, and only Washington mattered as much," writes Brands (author of a well-received Teddy Roosevelt biography, *T.R.: The Last Romantic* ). Franklin was a complex character who sometimes came up a bit short in the personal virtue department, once commenting, "That hard-to-be-governed passion of youth had hurried me frequently into intrigues with low women that fell in my way." When he married, another woman was already pregnant with his child--a son he took into his home and had his wife raise. Franklin is best remembered for other things, of course. His still-famous *Poor Richard's Almanac* helped him secure enough financial freedom as a printer to retire and devote himself to the study of electricity (which began, amusingly, with experiments on chickens). His mind never rested: He invented bifocals, the armonica (a musical instrument made primarily of glass), and, in old age, a mechanical arm that allowed him to reach books stored on high shelves. He served American interests as a diplomat in Europe; without him, France might not have intervened in the American Revolution. He helped draft the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He possessed a sense of humor, too. In 1776, when John Hancock urged the colonies to "hang together," Franklin is said to have commented, "We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately." Franklin's accomplishments were so numerous and varied that they threaten to read like a laundry list. Yet Brands pours them into an engrossing narrative, and they leap to life on these pages as the grand story of an exceptional man. *The First American* is an altogether excellent biography. *\--John J. Miller* ### From Publishers Weekly "Franklin's story is the story of a manDan exceedingly gifted man and a most engaging one. It is also the story of the birth of AmericaDan America this man discovered in himself, then helped create in the world at large," says Texas A&M historian Brands (T.R.: The Last Romantic, etc.) in the prologue to his stunning new work. Franklin's father took him out of school at age 11, but the boy assiduously sacrificed sleep (while working as an apprentice printer) to read and learn, giving himself rigorous exercises to develop his ease with language and discourse, among other disciplines. In essence, as Brands vividly demonstrates, Franklin defined the Renaissance man. He made multiple contributions to science (electricity, meteorology), invention (bifocal lenses, the Franklin furnace) and civic institutions (the American Philosophical Society, the University of Pennsylvania, the U.S. Post Office). But Brands is primarily concerned with Franklin's development as a thinker, politician and statesman and places his greatest emphasis there. In particular, Brands does an excellent job of capturing Franklin's exuberant versatility as a writer who adopted countless personaeDevidence of his gift for seeing the world through a variety of different lensesDthat not only predestined his prominence as a man of letters but also as an agile man of politics. From Franklin's progress as a self-declared "Briton"Dserving as London agent for Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and other coloniesDto his evolution as an American (wartime minister to France, senior peace negotiator with Britain and, finally, senior participant at the Constitutional Convention), Brands, with admirable insight and arresting narrative, constructs a portrait of a complex and influential man ("only Washington mattered as much") in a highly charged world. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

**From *New York Times* bestselling author H. W. Brands, a masterful biography of the Civil War general and two-term president who saved the Union twice, on the battlefield and in the White House, holding the country together at two critical turning points in our history.** Ulysses Grant rose from obscurity to discover he had a genius for battle, and he propelled the Union to victory in the Civil War. After Abraham Lincoln's assassination and the disastrous brief presidency of Andrew Johnson, America turned to Grant again to unite the country, this time as president. In Brands's sweeping, majestic full biography, Grant emerges as a heroic figure who was fearlessly on the side of right. He was a beloved commander in the field but willing to make the troop sacrifices necessary to win the war, even in the face of storms of criticism. He worked valiantly to protect the rights of freedmen in the South; Brands calls him the last presidential defender of black civil rights for nearly a century. He played it straight with the American Indians, allowing them to shape their own fate even as the realities of Manifest Destiny meant the end of their way of life. He was an enormously popular president whose memoirs were a huge bestseller; yet within decades of his death his reputation was in tatters, the victim of Southerners who resented his policies on Reconstruction. In this page-turning biography, Brands now reconsiders Grant's legacy and provides a compelling and intimate portrait of a man who saved the Union on the battlefield and consolidated that victory as a resolute and principled political leader. ### Review Praise for *The Man Who Saved the Union * “Through Grant, Mr. Brands paints a vivid landscape of mid-19th-century America filling his canvas with fascinating characters . . . Mr. Brands's prose is engaging, almost conversational, and the narrative moves briskly.” — *The Wall Street Journal * "Comprehensive, dramatic, and highly readable . . . H.W. Brands has written an authoritative, action-packed, and well-rounded biography of a very human Ulysses S. Grant." — *Philadelphia Inquirer * “In this splendidly written biography, University of Texas at Austin professor H.W. Brands does justice to one of America’s most underrated presidents . . . Brands is both sympathetic and thorough in his examination of Grant’s life. *The Man Who Saved the Union* makes clear that Grant did precisely that. The end of the Civil War did not mark the end of the divisions that had so badly weakened the country, and during Reconstruction those divisions threatened to plunge America back into chaos. Brands has provided a valuable service by making clear how much America owes to Ulysses Grant.” — *Dallas Morning News * “Thorough, balanced, and a good read . . . Brands deserves great praise for once more attempting to put Ulysses S. Grant where he belongs, in the pantheon of American heroes.” —Michael Korda, *The Daily Beast * “Brands’s Grant is captured crisply in the title of his new biography: *The Man Who Saved the Union*. But Brands’s Grant is more than that. He is, like the increasingly accepted view of Dwight D. Eisenhower, ‘indisputably above politics,’ a crusader against race hatred, a warrior against what Grant himself called ‘lawlessness, turbulence, and bloodshed,’ friend to black and Indian alike. . . . Brands artfully portrays Grant as a man of his times—‘his adult life had coincided with the Union’s long crisis’—and argues, persuasively, that he played a role in settling the great questions of his time.” *—The Boston Globe * “What is distinctive about this distinguished biographer's new work is its rehabilitation of President Grant, who was not only a great general who wrote memoirs worthy of comparison to Julius Caesar's, but a great moral leader who pursued Lincoln's agenda of re-unifying the nation and integrating its former slaves into one indivisible nation.” — *Minneapolis Star Tribune * "A well-done effort to portray one of the most important and insufficiently appreciated American figures of the 19th century." — *Richmond Times-Dispatch * “Once again, H. W. Brands has crafted a wonderful portrait of a great leader who endured and prevailed in hours of stress and strain. Brands’s U. S. Grant is a compelling figure, a man too often overlooked by history. This book rectifies that with grace and insight.” —Jon Meacham, author of *American Lion* , winner of the Pulitzer Prize for biography "There is a magnificent unity to this story of Grant's leadership in both war and peace that is not found anywhere else. In this compelling narrative, Grant emerges more fascinating than ever before." —Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of *Team of Rivals* and *No Ordinary Time* , winner of the Pulitzer Prize for history “Too frequently overshadowed or overlooked, U. S. Grant finally gets his due in H. W. Brands’ splendid new biography. With verve and his trademark scholarship, Brands vividly brings Grant to life. Here, rendered in all his humanity, is the soldier, statesman, president. Here, too, is a man as much for our time as for his.” —Jay Winik, author of *April 1865* and *The Great Upheaval* “H. W. Brands celebrates Grant the warrior and Grant the president, too long maligned by an unholy alliance of snobs, racists, and partisan historians. A great American gets his full due.” —Richard Brookhiser, author of *James Madison * “A skilled American storyteller reminds us of Grant's bravery and devotion on the bloody battlefields of the Civil War and as the president who rescued the martyred Lincoln's dream in the ugly seasons after the assassination. From the assault on Chapultepec to the carnage at Shiloh, from the Appomattox Court House to Grant's showdown as president with the Ku Klux Klan, the inestimable H. W. Brands tells the tale of this very human hero with the verve and insight we expect from a great biographer.” —John A. Farrell, author of *Cl* a*rence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned *"With this clear-eyed work, Brands re-examines the great American struggle, this time with Grant at the center. The result is deeper and more complex than much of the giant Lincoln literature, as Brands gives us not just the war but its painful and painstaking aftermath. The Grant presented here is altogether new — flawed, yes, but also brilliant, pratical, humble and perfectly American. This is an essential book." —Jim Newton, author of *Eisenhower: The White House Years * “This authoritative biography of an obscure failure and occasional drunkard who became a Civil War generalissimo and the 18th U.S. president is a study in two kinds of moral courage . . . [Brands’s] narrative of Grant’s military campaigns in particular is lucid, colorful, and focused on telling moments of decision. His Grant emerges as an immensely appealing figure . . . with a keen mind, stout character, and unpretentious manner. The result is a fine portrait of the quintessential American hero.” — *Publishers Weekly* starred review ### About the Author H. W. BRANDS is the Dickson Allen Anderson Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. A *New York Times* bestselling author, he was the finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography for *The First American* and again for *Traitor to His Class*. His website is www.hwbrands.com.

**The two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, bestselling historian, and author of** Our First Civil War **traces the extraordinary downfall of financier Jubilee Jim, bringing to life New York’s Gilded Age and some of its legendary players, including Boss William Tweed, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and the railroad tycoon Jay Gould. ** Even before he was shot dead on the stairway of the tony Grand Central Hotel in 1872, financier James “Jubilee Jim” Fisk, Jr., was a notorious New York City figure. From his audacious attempt to corner the gold market in 1869 to his battle for control of the geographically crucial Erie Railroad, Fisk was a flamboyant exemplar of a new financial era marked by volatile fortunes and unprecedented greed and corruption. But it was his scandalously open affair with a showgirl named Josie Mansfield that ultimately led to his demise. ### Review Praise for H. W. Brands “H. W. Brands is a master at finding the essence of an important American life, telling its story grippingly and showing us why it is important to our own generation.” —Michael Beschloss “Brands will change the way you see history.” — *The Austin American-Statesman* “A wonderfully skilled narrative historian.” — *Los Angeles Times* “Brands is masterly.” — *The Economist* “Few historians can tell a tale better.” — *The Dallas Morning News* ### About the Author H. W. BRANDS holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin. A *New York Times* bestselling author, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography for *The First American* and *Traitor to His Class*. Visit the author's website at www.hwbrands.com. ### Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1 A gray blanket cloaks the trees of Montparnasse on a late autumn morning. Smoke from the coal fires that heat the homes and shops along the narrow streets swirls upward to join the fog that congeals intermittently into drizzle. This part of Paris hides the signs of the Great Depression better than the blighted industrial districts, but the tattered storefronts, the shabby dress of men with nowhere to go, and the age of the few cars that ply the streets betray a community struggling to keep its soul together. An old, oddly configured vehicle lumbers slowly along the cobbles. The dispirited pedestrians pay it no mind. Nor do they heed the two women and one man who walk behind it. The women appear to be locals; the shawls around their shoulders and the scarves on their heads could have been taken from the woman selling apples on one of the corners they pass or from the grandmother dividing a thin baguette among her four little ones. (Or could she be their mother? Hard times play evil tricks on youth and beauty.) The man must be a foreigner. He dresses like an En?glishman, one whom the Depression seems to have spared. His heavy wool coat and felt hat shield him from the damp; the coat's collar and the hat's brim hide his face from those around him. He might be an American; he walks more assertively than the average En?glishman. He probably walked still more assertively when he was younger, although how many years have passed since that sprightly era is impossible to say. The two women speak quietly to each other. Neither addresses the man, nor he them. The vehicle-whether it is a car or a truck is as much a puzzle as most else about this small procession-slows almost to a stop, then turns onto the leaf-strewn lane of the cemetery that these days forms a principal raison d'être of the neighborhood. It moves tentatively along the track, picking its way among the gravestones and mausoleums, beneath the connecting branches of trees left over from when the farm on this site began accepting plantings that didn't sprout, not in this existence. The driver finally locates what he has been looking for, and he stops beside a fresh pile of dirt that is gradually turning dark as the drizzle soaks in. Two men shrouded in long coats suddenly but silently appear, as if from the earth itself. They stand at the rear of the vehicle as the driver lowers the gate. They grasp handles on the sides of the bare wooden box the vehicle contains, and with a nonchalance just shy of disrespect they hoist it out and set it on the ground between the pile of dirt and the hole from which the dirt has come. They step aside, wordlessly letting the three mourners know that this is their last chance to commune with the deceased. One of the women produces, from a cloth bag, a small cluster of chrysanthemums and places it on the coffin. The man takes a rose from inside his coat and, with quiet tenderness, lays it beside the other flowers. The three step back and gaze down at the wooden box. The drizzle turns to rain. The gravediggers slip short loops of rope inside the handles and lower the coffin into the grave. They pull up the ropes and begin shoveling the dirt back into its hole. The hearse drives away, at a faster pace than before. The women walk off together. The man lingers. He looks at the grave, then at the city in the distance, then back at the grave. Finally he too departs. 2 Another day, another decade, another funeral. And such a funeral. Lifelong New Yorkers cannot remember larger crowds, even to mark the Union victory in the Civil War. Many of those present today attended the victory celebration, but it is the nature of life in the great city, and the strength of the city's appeal to outsiders, that a large part of the population has turned over in the seven years since the Confederate surrender at Appomattox. Today the newcomers crane to see what the fuss is about. The funeral begins at the Grand Opera House on Twenty-third Street, where the body has lain for viewing. No one thinks the choice of venue odd-or at least none thinks it odder than that the Opera House is also home to one of America's great railroads, the Erie, of which the deceased was a director and to which he, as owner of the Opera House, rented office space. The lavish interior of the house-the sweeping grand staircase, the twenty-foot mahogany doors embellished with the company initials "E. R.," the bronze horses pawing the air furiously with their forehooves, the two-story mirror with the bust of Shakespeare on top, the sumptuous wall hangings, the carved and gilt columns, the cherubs disporting about the ceiling, the fountains spewing water into the air-has been rendered somewhat more somber for the sad occasion by the addition of black muslin tied up with black and white satin rosettes, to cover the cherubs and hide the gilt. The visitors have been gathering since dawn; by eleven, when the doors open, they number ten thousand. They file slowly in, some entering by the door on the Twenty-third Street side, the others from Eighth Avenue. They approach the rosewood casket with its gold-plated handles. They see the deceased in his uniform as colonel of New York's Ninth Regiment of militia. His cap and sword rest on his chest; his strawberry curls grace his forehead and temples. His face appears composed, albeit understandably pale; to some this seems strange, given the circumstances of the death. Flowers of various kinds- tuberoses, camellias, lilies-cover the lower portion of the body and surround the casket. Their scent fills the gallery. An honor guard of the Ninth Regiment stands at attention. First to view the body are the other directors of the Erie Railroad and certain members of the New York bar and judiciary. When the general public is let in, several women professionally associated with the opera-of which the deceased was a prominent patron-burst into tears. His barber stops at the head of the casket and, with one hand, rearranges the curls while, with the other, he twists the tips of the dead man's moustache. As the last of the visitors depart, the funeral service commences. The chaplain of the regiment reads from the Episcopal prayer book. The wife, mother, and sister of the deceased, all veiled and dressed in black, sit quietly for the most part, only now and then airing a sigh or an audible sob. At the end of the reading, each of the women approaches the casket and kisses the dead man. The rank and file of the regiment march slowly past their fallen comrade and commander, paying silent tribute. The casket is closed and covered with an American flag. The honor guard carries the casket to a waiting hearse. The regiment's band, backed by musicians from one of New York's German associations, tolls a dirge. The funeral procession forms up. One hundred New York policemen take the lead, followed by the band, which has segued into "The Dead March in Saul." A contingent of employees of the Erie Railroad come next, un- uniformed except for the black crape that adorns their arms. The full regiment, in parade dress, marches in triple file behind the Erie men. The hearse, pulled by four caparisoned black horses, rolls at a stately pace. A Negro groomsman guides the colonel's favorite horse, a snorting black charger. The saddle is empty; reversed boots fill the stirrups. Officers of New York's other regiments trail the stallion. Distinguished civilians, in handsome carriages, bring up the rear. The procession moves slowly east on Twenty-third Street. Businesses have closed out of respect for the dead man's passing; curtains and shades have been drawn on the private residences. Onlookers pack the sidewalks and spill into the streets. Others stand in the doorways and open windows of the buildings and on every balcony and stoop. Most are respectfully silent, but children shout and strangers who don't know why the city has come to a midday halt insistently ask. More than a few of those familiar with the irreverence of the deceased talk and laugh in a different form of respect. The procession turns north at Fifth Avenue. The regiment corners smartly, the others at their whim. Two blocks bring them to the New Haven depot, where a locomotive and train stand waiting. The pallbearers transfer the casket to a special car, draped in black, attached to the rear of the train. The family and close friends climb aboard the car to accompany their loved one to his final resting place in his native Vermont. The locomotive puts on steam and slowly pulls the train out of the station. No one departs until the train has gone. "And thus passed from sight the mortal remains of one who might have been a vast power for good, had he made use of the glorious opportunities vouchsafed to him," an eyewitness, more knowledgeable and literary than most, remarks. "Doubtless he had noble qualities, but they were hidden from the eyes of men, while his vices seemed to be on every man's lips." 3 Yet another day, another decade, another spectacle. Of course, every day with Jim Fisk is a spectacle. Or so Josie Mansfield often observes. Josie knows as much about Fisk as anyone does, and more than most people do. She knows he comes from Vermont, where he mastered the arts of persuasion while peddling tools and trinkets to the closed-fisted farmers of the Green Mountain State, whose wives loved Fisk for bringing the civilized world to their doorsteps and whose children thought of him as Santa Claus. She knows that he moved from Vermont to Boston in search of wealthier customers and fatter profits, and from Boston to New York for the same reason, amplified. She knows-or at least has heard-how he made a fortune smuggling Southern cotton to Northern mills during the Civil War. She knows he loves a spectacle, and that the spectacles he loves best put him at center stage. He perfumes his hair and waxes his moustache; he wears velvet coats of peacock colors, tailored low in front to reveal the diamond studs in his silk shirts. More diamonds, much larger, adorn his fingers and sparkle when he twirls the fat cigars he employs to punctuate his florid sentences. Josie knows Fisk runs with a fast crowd on Wall Street. He is Dan Drew's protégé and Jay Gould's partner; the three speculators have joined forces to fight the formidable Cornelius Vanderbilt for control of the Erie Railroad. Drew's domed forehead and beetled brow hide secrets of market manipulation vouchsafed to few in the financial world; his starched collar and tight cravat cover a heart that can merely be presumed to exist. Many on Wall Street swear Drew invented the double cross; more reliable authorities make him the pioneer of stock watering, which he is said to have adapted from the days when, as a cattle drover, he herded beeves down Broadway and swelled their bellies with water before unloading them on naïve purchasers. Now he simply dilutes the value of corporate stock by issuing new, sometimes bogus shares. The Erie is Drew's special plaything, his favored vehicle for manipulation. Josie can recite the Wall Street triplet: "Daniel says up, Erie goes up / Daniel says down, Erie goes down / Daniel says wiggle-waggle, it bobs both ways." Yet Drew combines conscienceless weekday practice with weekend piety; he never misses Sunday service at the Fourth Street Meth?odist Church and is endowing a divinity school to propagate the Gospel and bolster the Golden Rule- to repair the damage he does it during the week, Drew watchers suggest. She knows less about Jay Gould, in part because Gould cultivates mystery. He hides his comparative youth-he is not quite thirty-two- behind a bushy black beard and in public defers to Drew and Fisk. But his dark eyes flash when speculation is afoot, and his unconscious habit of tearing paper to shreds while reckoning risks and rewards tells Josie, whose biography has taught her to read men, that he might be the one to watch out for. Cornelius Vanderbilt is the titan of Wall Street-full of ambition, even at seventy-three years of age; full of money, as the wealthiest man in America; full of himself, with flowing white hair and sideburns that suit his imperious manner. He won his fortune by strength of will and often of arm; broken jaws and black eyes among the competition marked his rise to the top of the world of steam transport. He built a fleet of passenger ships and still insists on being called "Commodore"; lately he has diversified into trains. He drives the fanciest coach in Manhattan, pulled by the fastest horses and filled with the prettiest young women. His wrath is legendary and his wealth gives him the power to wield it. "Gentlemen," he famously wrote to a cabal who crossed him, "you have undertaken to cheat me. I won't sue you, for the law is too slow. I'll ruin you." And of course he did. He similarly aims to ruin Drew, Fisk, and Gould, who stand between him and control of the Erie Railroad. Josie knows that if Vanderbilt joins the Erie to his New York Central Railroad he will possess a monopoly of freight and passenger traffic between New York City and the Great Lakes and will become even wealthier, more prideful, and more powerful than he already is. The city and much of the Eastern Seaboard will be in his grasp; millions will pay whatever charges he deigns to dictate. If he fails to gain the Erie, he will gnash his teeth in the frustration he always feels at being bested and likely will launch a counterattack that could rock the railroad industry to its roots. With the economy as a whole coming to depend on railroads-these days hardly anything or anyone moves more than a few miles without riding a train- the fate of the country may rest on the outcome of the battle for the Erie. Josie and New York watch as the strategies of the two sides unfold in early 1868. Vanderbilt's assault is characteristically frontal: he orders his brokers to buy all the Erie shares they can. Like many frontal assaults, Vanderbilt's attack is expensive: each round of purchases drives up the share price. But Vanderbilt's great wealth almost guarantees success, and he intends to recoup his investment by hiking the Erie's rates and fares after he captures the road. Drew's defensive strategy is likewise characteristic, in his case deviously so. Drew currently commands a controlling interest in the Erie, and he has lately added Fisk and Gould to the board of directors, which authorizes the issue of $10 million in bonds convertible to stock. The function of the bonds, Drew tells the board, is to fund improvements to the road; in reality he plans to use them against Vanderbilt. Together with some stock shares authorized by the board but not yet issued, the bonds give Drew potential access to some 100,000 shares that the market-meaning, at this point, primarily Vanderbilt-knows nothing about. Vanderbilt's ignorance is crucial to Drew's plan, for the fate of the Erie turns on the question of whether Vanderbilt will run out of money before Drew and his comrades run out of stock. The share price continues to mount as the Commodore presses his purchasing, but Vanderbilt, allowing for the shares known to exist, calculates that he can absorb the rising price and still reach his goal. ### Review Praise for H. W. Brands “H. W. Brands is a master at finding the essence of an important American life, telling its story grippingly and showing us why it is important to our own generation.” —Michael Beschloss “Brands will change the way you see history.” —_The Austin American-Statesman_ “A wonderfully skilled narrative historian.” —_Los Angeles Times_ “Brands is masterly.” —_The Economist_ “Few historians can tell a tale better.” —_The Dallas Morning News_ *From the Trade Paperback edition.* ### Product Description Even before he was shot dead on the stairway of the tony Grand Central Hotel in 1872, financier James “Jubilee Jim” Fisk, Jr., was a notorious New York City figure. From his audacious attempt to corner the gold market in 1869 to his battle for control of the geographically crucial Erie Railroad, Fisk was a flamboyant exemplar of a new financial era marked by volatile fortunes and unprecedented greed and corruption. But it was his scandalously open affair with a showgirl named Josie Mansfield that ultimately led to his demise. In this riveting short history—the first in his American Portraits series—H. W. Brands traces Fisk’s extraordinary downfall, bringing to life New York’s Gilded Age and some of its legendary players, including Boss William Tweed, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and the railroad tycoon Jay Gould. *From the Trade Paperback edition.*

Theodore Roosevelt (1857–1919) was the most literary of American Presidents, writing scores of books, including Through the Brazilian Wilderness and African Game Trails. He was also the most active of American writers. In little more than six decades, Roosevelt was, among many of his activities, a rancher, historian, reformer, New York City Police Commissioner, renowned hunter, New York State Governor, conservationist, Vice President of the United States, and 26th President of the United States. What is less known is that Roosevelt was also one of the great epistolary writers, penning more than 100,000 letters. This collection brings together over 1,000 of Roosevelt's most engaging and revealing letters, ones that fully illuminate the private man and the public figure. Herein, Roosevelt corresponds with family, friends, colleagues, and political opponents. He discusses private matters, politics, military strategy, conservation, diplomacy, higher education, women's rights, literature, and football. The list of addresses is formidable, including: Jefferson Davis, Francis Parkman, Frederick Jackson Turner, John Muir, Andrew Carnegie, Jane Addams, Henry Ford, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John J. Pershing, Woodrow Wilson, Rudyard Kipling, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. The Selected Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, superbly edited by H. W. Brands, allows Roosevelt to speak in his own inimitable voice. These letters capture the verve and sheer joy of life that was Roosevelt's signature.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A brilliant evocation of one of the greatest presidents in American history by the two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, bestselling historian, and author of Our First Civil War "It may well be the best general biography of Franklin Roosevelt we will see for many years to come.” —The Christian Science Monitor Drawing on archival material, public speeches, correspondence and accounts by those closest to Roosevelt early in his career and during his presidency, H. W. Brands shows how Roosevelt transformed American government during the Depression with his New Deal legislation, and carefully managed the country's prelude to war. Brands shows how Roosevelt's friendship and regard for Winston Churchill helped to forge one of the greatest alliances in history, as Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin maneuvered to defeat Germany and prepare for post-war Europe. Look for H.W. Brands's other biographies: THE FIRST AMERICAN (Benjamin Franklin), ANDREW JACKSON, THE MAN WHO SAVED THE UNION (Ulysses S. Grant), and REAGAN.