Excellent biography of Lincoln that needed to be shorter

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	• Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln Doris Kearns Goodwin Simon & Schuster, 2006 - 944 pages average customer review:based on 362 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Doris Kearns Goodwin is a treasure

Saying great things about a great man like Lincoln reminds me of my favorite Christmas song: "And though it's been said many times, many ways...". But this book is a gem. It really shows us what a genius Lincoln was and gives us so much insight on him and his cabinet at the same time. She describes people and personalities until you find yourself in the room with them. Like the great Ken Burns, she is delivering these people to us-- not through a 'this happened and then this happened' manner-- but via "emotional archaeology". The ending-- although I know it well-- still made me choke up with anxiety and sadness; emotions that only a great writer like her can evoke. And while you cover all the great events, I LOVE YOUR DETAILS Mrs Goodwin. For example: Seward oddly noticed that his assassin was a "fine looking man" dressed in "handsome cloth". That sort of minutiae--- to a veteran of textbook history like myself-- is such gold. Doris Kearns Goodwin, I fell in love with you when I first saw you talking about George Washington's ill-fitting teeth, then again as you chronicled your youth as a Brooklyn Dodgers fan... and now, after this work, I find myself falling once again. Like I said, you are a rare treasure.

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Review of Team Of Rivals

Being occasionally an idiot, I find myself with some form of prejudice against female authors. But Doris Kerns Goodwin does a masterful work in portraying the events and characters of Abraham Lincoln's day.
This is a fascinating character study of the people surrounding the American Civil War (an oxymoron if there ever was one). It is made possible by the fact that with no telephones, radio, or TV media; people wrote. They wrote to spouses, family, friends, enemies, rivals, newspapers, dairies, in both personal and public formats. Goodwin's apparent exhaustive study of these writings is obvious from the beginning as she exposes both the true and the two faced characters revealed by their own writings.
This book was fascinating for me in several areas. Lincoln had two qualities that usually do exist in the same person. He was a warm hearted, transparently honest, relational, forthcoming person of character and integrity. And he was a masterful genius of a politician.
I would make this 'required reading' for anyone who wants to hang on to their sanity in a political environment. By political environment I mean places such as the management & supervisor professions, classroom teaching, religious ministry, and certain family situations resembling my own.
But beware, Goodwin's exhaustive character development of Lincoln's contemporaries can get tedious. I occasionally skimmed thru some of it, much to my regret later in the book. Pay attention to all she says, there is an incredible payoff mid way thru.
I saw Barak Obama on the news holding a copy Team Of Rivals and saying something to the effect that it was his favorite book. If you are a fan of Obama, you ought to read it. If you are not, even more must you read it to understand what he might be up too.
Thomas S Boswell

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Excellent biography of Lincoln that needed to be shorter

Team of Rivals starts with following the lives of four different people prior to the 1860 presidential race. The four people were Seward (becomes Sec of State), Chase (becomes Sec of Treasury), Bates (becomes Attorney General) and finally Lincoln. Doris does a fine job in describing the events that led up to the Republican nomination. She tries to make the point that one of Lincoln's great political moves was incorporating these rivals into his cabinet. The story of these 4 individuals is interesting to read and leads up to the climax of the Republican nomination at about page 256 (book is 754 pages total). However, her point then fizzles out after this point. Bates becomes a minor character in the book. Furthermore I came to realize that the fact Lincoln picked these rivals as his cabinet members was not necessarily such a brilliant move. First, Presidents' choosing of their rivals for political appointments is nothing particularly interesting, new or unique. For example, Vice Presidential nominees are frequently the Presidents' nominees. When I first heard about the book's premise, I expected the rivals to have been from the opposite party but I soon found out that was not the case. Second, the fact that Lincoln picked his rivals did not necessarily add to the effectiveness of his administration. As Doris shows there was a lot of arguments among the cabinet members and Lincoln had to mediate frequently.

Doris does a very nice job depicting Lincoln's genius however. Lincoln had a lot of unique and outstanding qualities that made his years as President a huge success. The author could have focused on a lot of these other attributes. For example, Lincoln's generosity and amazing ability for forgiveness was truly unique. He once said, "I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends" (this quote was not in the book). This way of looking at the world and actually acting on it certainly contributed greatly to his success and unfortunately after his assassination because of its absence made reconstruction a lot more difficult.

The book is perhaps too long with some parts and quotes not being relevant. It would have been better if it were shorter. Nevertheless I highly recommend it for its clarity, thorough research and excellent writing.

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A must for every private library of American history

Abraham Lincoln left us very little of a personal nature: no meeting notes, no journal, no revealing personal letters. William Herndon, his law partner, described Lincoln as the most shut mouth man he had ever met. No wonder the man's an enigma. Absent a primary source, the best way to dig beneath the surface is to look at the people Lincoln chose to be around and how the various parties interacted. Goodwin does an exceptional job of revealing a great deal about Lincoln by using this technique.

Team of Rivals is a readable and fascinating study of Abraham Lincoln and his cabinet--also his working relationship with his assistants. We may not know a lot of first-hand details about Lincoln's personal thoughts, beliefs, and personality, but we know that with less than a year of formal education, Lincoln held his own with a cabinet impeccably educated in the best institutions in America. These weren't just bright, well educated people; they were the power brokers of the newly formed Republican party.

How Lincoln harnessed this talent tells us a lot about the man and his capabilities. Goodwin has done an outstanding job of illuminating a crucial period in our country's history by using a fresh approach and her lifetime experience examining and writing about key figures in American history.
The Shut Mouth Society
The Shopkeeper

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Depressing

Reading about the deeds of these great men makes me depressed when I think about the trolls we have in Washington today. Reading about Lincoln's visit to battlefield hospitals or about the children of cabinet members who fought in the Civil War...it really makes you think about the current state of our government.

reviews: 1, page 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

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