It is often taken for granted that the United States of America has survived the many existential crises thrown onto its path since 1776.

On more than several occasions, the world’s first republican nation state came close to the brink of dissolution and besides our current tumultuous age, no period in history saw that threat arise so intensely as the period of the 1861-65 Civil War and the immediate period ensuing Lincoln’s untimely murder.

How did the young republic manage to stay whole despite the fact that the north had lost nearly every battle during the first year of the war and had to content with global imperial forces supporting its dissolution (including within both Wall Street, Boston and Canada)? How did it manage to survive those dark days when the enemies of the nation took control of Washington over the dead body of Lincoln? How were the emergent threats of the KKK swiftly put down and how did the USA’s particular system of political economy become an international phenomenon between 1872-1880?

Answering these questions requires delving into the creative mind and personal life of a man named Sam Grant to his friends and Ulysses Grant to the ages.

In this Rising Tide Foundation lecture, Martin Sieff not only introduces the humble and unlikely beginnings of the man who would change the course of the Civil War and alter the flow of world history as president from 1870-78, but would also leave for posterity a powerful enigma of a true creative genius, blemishes and all, devoted to his conscience and the cause of freedom for all mankind.

Martin looses no opportunities in this lecture to note the universal archetypes of both individual psychology and group dynamics in the various military figures who played prominent roles in the Civil War and their counterparts in WW2 who either suffered from similar toxic delusions on the one hand or positive self-awareness and insight on the other.

Speaker bio: Martin Sieff is Adjunct Professor of Transnational Threats at Bay Atlantic University and a senior fellow of the Global Policy Institute and the American University in Moscow. He is the author of seven books including “Cycles of Change: the patterns of US politics from Thomas Jefferson to Barack Obama‘ – and “Gathering Storm: The Three Great Eras of US History and Coming Crisis that Will Lead to the Fourth”. His previous RTF lecture on Lincoln and Shakepeare can be viewed here.