Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff:
The Maroon Edition Planning Committee and I are pleased to announce that “Hold On with a Bulldog Grip: A Short Study of Ulysses S. Grant” is the selection for Mississippi State University’s common reading program this year. It is a most appropriate choice for our campus, which is home to the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library.
I hope that all of our incoming freshmen and transfers — and many of you — will read “Hold On with a Bulldog Grip” before the fall semester begins. Every incoming freshman and transfer student attending an Orientation session will receive a copy of the book. Set for publication by the University Press of Mississippi on April 15, it will also be available through Barnes & Noble at MSU and from other booksellers.
Written by Mississippi State historians John Marszalek, David Nolen, and Louie Gallo, and university benefactor and scholar Frank Williams, “Bulldog Grip” offers a concise but no less compelling account of Grant’s remarkable life as soldier, general, president, and best-selling author. I was honored to contribute an afterword examining the long-standing connection between Grant and our institution — a story that many may not know.
I am confident you will find reading “Hold On with a Bulldog Grip” time well spent as you get to know Ulysses S. Grant, one of our nation’s most fascinating figures whose life continues to unfold here at Mississippi State University.
Mark E. Keenum
President