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 A great read Nov 13, 2009
Plenty of people have reviewed this book. Let me just add a couple of reasons why you might enjoy this book:
(1) Through the way it approaches Lincoln's presidency the book provides insights into the US at the time as well as Lincoln's leadership style. So many interesting issues intersect in this book that you end up learning about everything from military tactics to the broad issues of slavery. In addition, Lincoln's days were filled with the great struggle to hold a nation together as well as more personal struggles as he dealt with the loss of his son. As a subject, the Lincoln presidency is hard to beat and this account is hard to beat.
(2) It's a very readable (but long) account of a tremendously important historical figure. I've read a lot of good books on various presidents and this one gave me one of the best views of any single book I've read. Theodore Rex (by Edmund Morris) and John Adams (David McCullough) are the only other volumes I can think of that provided such rich insights and were so enjoyable to read.
People can quibble over the details and a few southern apologists will reject any positive Lincoln biography. However, Team of Rivals is one of best books of its type and should be near the top of any reading list on US history.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Team of Rivals, President Lincoln's greatness shines forth! Nov 01, 2009
Abraham Lincoln was perhaps the greatest man who has ever graced the United States of America. When America needed a great and wise man most, during our terrible civil war, President Lincoln was there to see us through. His down to earth honesty, tremendous wisdom, generous humanity, wonderful humor, personal tragedies and struggles and always tender heart are here revealed in a most thorough and captivating way. Doris Kearns Goodwin is a national treasure herself. She has once again illuminated a major part of the American story, with intelligence, clarity and smooth as silk writing. Living was tough in the 19th century. Illness and early death were part of many families lives. Lincoln and almost every member of his administration faced terrible heart ache and losses that seemed too much to bear. To read how many of them grew to love and respect each other and rely on each other was very touching and real. And then there were the schemers and manipulators that Lincoln gave every chance for redemption and change. Failing generals and ineffective or jealous key administration officials were given many second chances (too many for some of them!) by the understanding, patient and magnanimous Mr. Lincoln. Alas, no one was as big a man as Abraham Lincoln and as we learn in this book of the greater and lesser people who surrounded our sixteenth president, the greater Lincoln becomes before our eyes and before history. Thank you Doris and may you forever rest in peace, Abraham Lincoln, a most magnificent human being and our greatest president.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Incredibly detailed and incredibly real Oct 05, 2009
Team of Rivals is a fantastic book. Although by training I am an ancient historian, I have recently taken an interest in the American Civil War era and its effects on the postwar society of the time. A friend from the OR was reading it and recommended it, so I purchased it. It took a while for the book to emerge from the pile of books by my bed, but I finally read it. It was so fascinating I completed it in about 3 days, all 757 pages.
While I have read books on the Civil War and on Lincoln before, I find that many of them come to see the assassination of Lincoln as the central drama played out against the backdrop of the war. While much is made of the man, especially at his end, less is made of him as a politician and a person placed at the crossroads of history. He is more myth than man in these accounts. The focus on every detail of his last hours and upon his assassins motives and ends reflects more on the modern fascination with death and murder in all its vivid detail than on history and those that made it.
Writer Doris Goodwin's (PhD in Government) book is a marvelous look at Lincoln as a political force. She discusses his remarkable growth as a young man, his law practice and political aspirations. More than any other writer on Lincoln, Dr. Goodwin presents the man as a person of intelligence, incredible ambition, and a sense of his own place in history. His desire to be worthy of remembrance by doing something remarkable for mankind marks him as a man of note, even before Lincoln the president takes the stage.
In order to place Lincoln in context, the author discusses his rivals and their political development and personal history along with those of Lincoln himself. If I had read the book for no other reason, this would still have made it more worthwhile than any other. She has pulled so many primary sources together that each man, and even those who supported him, becomes a vivid personality in the mind of the reader. In fact, I knew so little previously about any of them beyond their names, they had hardly entered into my concept of the Civil War era. I had heard some of their names in other contexts, specifically Seward as the purchaser of Alaska--"Seward's Folly" as it was labeled at the time--but nothing much else. Dr. Goodwin's biographical sketch of each made me realize how narrowly the country came to having had some other politician at the helm at this point in time. Each had so much to recommend him for the presidency and such history of political contributions in their past that I realize now how totally extraordinary Lincoln`s election really was.
Only by a delft handling of political situations by a master strategist, which he apparently was, could have placed Lincoln in the right place at the right time to be nominated, and only his genius for recognizing his rivals potential and making use of it got him elected. While the image of "Lincoln the story teller, rail splitter and simple prairie lawyer" that we received in grade school is real, so too is the "Lincoln the skillful and ambitious politician." And we have much to be thankful for this. I feel somehow that the experience of the enormity of the Civil War would have felled most of his rivals long before its end with dire consequences to the country. So far as I can conceive, no other candidate could have withstood the enormous pressures of the presidency at this time except Lincoln, whose unique personal characteristics, particularly his astute assessment of the average person, of his rivals as politicians, and his unbelievable patience could have done the job. That he was assassinated when it was finally done seems almost providential. In observing his actual physical decline in successive photographs through his occupation of the White House, one wonders if he would have survived long after the war anyway. Stress takes its toll. Certainly if he had Marfan's Syndrome, as some believe, his days were probably numbered from birth. One of my own patients died of it at 35, as had his father and one brother before him, and Lincoln was nearly 54 when he died, which is really pushing it.
More than any other book, this one discusses the Civil War as a defining event with roots. The basis of the confrontation was in the struggle to prevent the spread of slavery (Northern) or to promote it (Southern) and in the Great Paradox: that the first democracy in the world was also one of the only western nations to espouse slavery as a viable and acceptable economic foundation for a society. The founding fathers had understood this at the beginning of the nation. Jefferson, who struggled with it as he wrote the constitution, also feared that challenging it would lead to early division of the nascent country, leaving each state to be snapped up by overseas powers. He and the other patriots of his time consciously left it to a later generation to deal with, and understood both that it would ultimately have to do so and that it would be a blood bath when that finally happened. That it took 16 presidencies before push finally came to shove is a sign of the compromises to which people were willing to resort to avoid dealing with it. It also shows how well everyone at the time understood to what it would lead.
Interesting too is the author's presentation of the various generals on both sides. She gives a short biography of each and makes it clear to what extent the entire war was a political stage. No general, north or south--with the possible exception of Lee, who didn't approve of the war in the first place--would risk defeat in the field--indeed Lincoln's main problem during the first years of it was his various general's inactivity. While winning a battle might make a hero of a man, defeat would certainly render his political ambitions for presidency null, and few were willing to risk it. This kept armies of men in the field. Almost as many men if not more were lost to the conditions of the camp as were lost to combat fatality. Dysentery, malnutrition, and exposure was rampant on both sides of the conflict, thus prolonging the war by avoiding the conflict actually lost more men.
While there is no formal bibliography, the author has given copious notes for each chapter with citations which will give the interested reader sources for further investigation on a variety of subtopics. Certainly anyone looking to do a term paper will find this a wonderful source of ideas for topics and resources.
For THOSE WRITING PAPERS in: history of the Civil War; Civil War politics; Civil War period culture; individual personalities of the period; women's studies, etc.:
TO WHAT extent was the election of Lincoln due to his own political abilities or to the efforts of others? What characteristics of his cabinet members played key roles during the conflict between the states, and do you think that much would have changed if they had not played the part they did; defend your answer? Do you think that slavery would have died on its own had the Civil War not occurred as it did; defend your position. What part did women play in politics during this period; give examples and discuss them to defend your position. To what extent did Mary Lincoln help or hinder her husband in his search for office and during his presidency. What part did the death of Willie Lincoln play in the drama of the civil war? What part did Robert Lincoln play? What happened to Lincoln's cabinet members after the war and how did this shape the post-war politics? How did the return of Civil War veterans effect society? Compare and contrast the Civil War and other War Veteran's experiences, ie. WWI, WWII, Korean, Viet Nam, Persian Gulf, etc.
A truly complex and marvelous tale. I recommend it to anyone interested in this era.
What I expected Sep 30, 2009
I give it five stars because I got exactly what I expected from the description of the book by the seller. I like that. When you get what you expect I believe that is worth 5 stars. My expectations are always high.
Team of Rivals Review Sep 30, 2009
Even though I have not finished reading this book, so far it is what I expected from this author. Everything she writes is very good and easy to read. It is not just a list of facts, but a story behind the characters. You learn more than what you read in history books. Highly recommended.
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