The Annotated Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant

West Point professor Samet (Soldier’s Heart) pulls off a herculean scholarly achievement in her annotation of Grant’s classic autobiography. Her valuable introduction places Grant’s memoirs in the autobiographical tradition that starts with the likes of Julius Caesar and has found more modern incarnations in Joan Didion and James Baldwin. She also explores Grant’s literary influences, which included popular 19th-century writers like Edward Bulwer Lytton and Washington Irving and religious leader John Wesley. Footnotes add color by fleshing out individuals mentioned in passing, add context by expanding on events that Grant elides (such as an anti-Semitic order he issued in 1862), and add varied perspectives by quoting accounts of African-American soldiers (one such passage discusses the self-respect freed slaves gained in soldiering) and other generals. Samet’s sources are wide-ranging, from classical writers like Herodotus to Toni Morrison (Samet quotes her description of the black experience immediately postwar, from Beloved) and Monty Python (deriding the practice of paroling enemy soldiers, who then returned to fight again, as “the kind of chivalric inanity satirized so brilliantly in Monty Python and the Holy Grail”). The end result is a very rich reading experience that highlights unexpected connections between events in the text, its historical moment, and its connections to larger cultural themes. Samet accomplishes the rare feat of creating accessible annotations that are as fascinating and enlightening as the text they are meant to enrich. (Nov.)