H.W. Brands, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, is telling the history of the United States through a series of biographies: Benjamin Franklin, Andrew Jackson, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt.

His latest book is “The Man Who Saved the Union,” about Ulysses Grant, the Civil War hero who later became president. Brands, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin, will be at Warwick’s Thursday at 7:30 p.m.

Q: Why did you become a historian?

A: I grew up in Portland. When I was a kid, my father used to take me and my siblings around to visit historical sites. I never had an idea that I would turn out to be a historian or a writer, or a teacher for that matter, but history always struck me as interesting....