Wow. This 900 page book tells the story of pretty much everyone is Abraham Lincoln’s life. It is DENSE.

The 1860 Republican Nomination for President was down to four people, ending with the unlikely selection of Abraham Lincoln. He then went on to appoint his three ‘rivals’ to be in his Cabinet. Lincoln sought differing opinions and people to question him and his decisions.

I am amazed by Lincoln’s humility, grace, character and leadership. He always took the blame and sought reconciliation and forgiveness when everyone else wanted to punish and scorn (people who made errors in his office, Confederate soldiers, etc.)

I cried finishing this book. It felt so personal to have Lincoln be assassinated. I kept thinking, “How different would America be if he had lived?” Seeing the way his Cabinet (his ‘rivals’) reacted to his death brought me to tears. Through all of their differences, they respected and loved Abe.

Lincoln brought unity in a time where families were literally separated and fought one another. I will be mulling this over in light of our country’s current divisiveness.

When Rod Blagojevich was impeached and hauled off to prison, that made four of the previous seven Illinois governors to have done time. Countless representatives and aldermen have been locked up, too. Then there was my wife’s favorite: a former Secretary of State found after his death to have $800,000 stuffed in shoe boxes. Our reputation for corrupt politicians is, I dare say, unsurpassed. Fortunately, we here in the Land of Lincoln (as we call it on our license plates) have one historical figure capable of tipping the scales back towards respectability.

I’ve taken a real interest in Abe and his legacy in recent months (more on why in a minute). Of the books I’ve read, this one and David Herbert Donald’s Lincoln are my favorites. They both deserve credit for finding unique space within what is arguably the most densely populated expanse of American history. Goodwin focused on Lincoln’s clever leadership in bringing together a group of his former opponents, thinking them to be the most capable cabinet members at a very challenging time. We get thoroughly researched sketches of:

Edwin Stanton – a bitter rival contemptuous of Lincoln when they were both involved in a famous court case. He called Lincoln a long armed ape, but was subsequently recruited by a magnanimous Lincoln to be Secretary of War and grew to love the President.

Salmon Chase – one of the founders of the new Republican Party who felt he was owed the nomination that Lincoln ultimately won, later did laudable work as Lincoln’s Treasury Secretary.

William Seward – a senator and later governor of New York, was certain he was going to win the nomination in 1860. After Lincoln offered him the Secretary of State post, Seward figured on seizing power by essentially running his own government within the cabinet only to discover Lincoln’s skill at bringing different factions together. In Seward’s capacity as the anti-yes man, he became Lincoln’s best ally and friend.

Edward Bates – a senior presence within the party who was coaxed into running against Lincoln in the primaries. After losing that battle he reluctantly took the job as Attorney General for the good of the troubled nation. He initially thought of Lincoln as an incompetent bureaucrat, but ultimately concluded that he was “very near being a ‘perfect man.’”

Naturally, most of the spotlight fell on Lincoln himself. Goodwin showed us the tricky waters that led to the Emancipation Proclamation on 4/1/1863 – a Good Friday in every way – as well as other less famous but still important milestones that required a masterful helmsman. I give her ample credit for underscoring his sound judgment, his political savvy, his wry sense of humor, and his superabundant humanity.

So why my sudden interest in Lincoln? I thought you’d never ask. Aside from the fact that he is probably the most analyzed and lionized figure in American history, it looks like I have a personal connection as well. I was revisiting some genealogical research I’d started years ago, knowing that the internet now reveals more ties than those dusty tomes I used to find in libraries and court houses ever did. One of my ancestors, Joseph Hanks, had a sister named Lucy who I’d never bothered following up on before. Anyway, according to ancestry.com, she was the mother of an illegitimate daughter named Nancy who was, by all known accounts, Abe’s mother. It was one of those can-this-really-be-true moments. But I triple-checked every link and am as sure as anyone can be given existing records that Abe is my second cousin six times removed. I’d originally thought to look into a DNA test like the one they did to explain all those red-haired, brown-skinned kids running around Monticello, but then decided against it. I wouldn’t know who to contact, it would likely be expensive, and I’d rather just assume that it’s true.

Of course I realize this is a watered down relationship, and for all I know hundreds if not thousands of other people can make this same claim. I have to confess, though, that for a while I thought of myself differently. My gaunt face and hollow cheeks were no longer flaws, but indicative family traits. And though I haven’t tried to grow a beard in years, I’m certain if I did, it would be scraggly. I even looked for examples where I could count myself as a cut above in probity, eloquence and fair-mindedness.

Before I got to the point of imagining Daniel Day-Lewis playing me in a biopic of my soon-to-be famous life, I realized that I was still just me – a guy who needs to remember that humility is one of his few attractive traits. Besides, (this is the really weird part) I did more digging into my family roots and discovered that my great-great-grandmother, Cora Claudine Flickinger from Byhalia, Ohio had a sister named Lula Dell Flickinger who the internet shows was the grandmother of one Barbara Pierce Bush. That makes me a somewhat less diluted third cousin once removed of George W. Bush. Suffice it to say I now think of these genealogical ties as less meaningful. I lack the power and initiative to unshackle an oppressed segment of society, but then I don’t feel any compulsion to invade Iraq either.

So please understand I’m not obsessed by my connections, but today of all days, after reviewing this wonderful book, I feel enough of a kinship to quote my famous cousins. As Lincoln said, “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” Cousin Dubya modified the quote (for real) observing that, “You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.”

Are any of you picturing Pinocchio in a jester’s hat right now, perhaps in place of a white Rubik’s cube? Any theories on why I feel compelled to do this? I’m curious myself. Am I dissatisfied with reality and need the artifice to spice things up? (No, I’m luckier than most and I know it.) Am I simply attempting to entertain? (Hmm… sounds a little too noble and generous – probably not.) Am I trying to switch the focus away from anything relevant to shine the light on me, myself and I? (That’s probably closest to the mark. Either that or I’ve got a genetic predisposition for n  disnhonesty.) If there’s any good that’s come of this, it’s that I’m now truly eager to read Team of Rivals.

This is a wonderful biography, not just of Lincoln, but of the entire 'team.' It was full of revelations for me. I had always thought about slavery like Apu from the Simpsons, in the episode where he's applying for citizenship. The man administering the test asks him why the Civil War was fought, and Apu begins a long and complicated answer about the economics of the time and states' rights and such, and the testing guy waves him off and says, "Just say 'slavery.'" I knew that slavery was a big part of it, but I didn't understand how.

But slavery was a defining issue of the day. I had not realized that most of Lincoln's Republican rivals for the nomination in 1860 were much more staunch abolitionists than Lincoln was. Seward and Chase were heroes of the abolitionist movement and had spoken forcefully and courageously against it. Lincoln may have been against slavery personally, but he dealt with it in a very nuanced way. He wanted to oppose it strictly on constitutional grounds, and in so doing he was willing to be bound by the Constitution as well. His belief was that they could forbid slavery in new states, or in states that did not already have it, but that they could not, under the Constitution, take it from states that already had it.

Goodwin depicts Lincoln's evolving genius. He was animated by a deep reverence for the Constitution, and he also had instinct for when the country was ready for change, and when to hold back on an issue because to press to hard would be to turn people away from it.

Another delightful aspect of Goodwin's book is the human qualities she describes. You can see this tall, ungainly, unkempt man, too tall for his trousers and much of the furniture, and you can understand how the political class at the time would have completely underestimated him. But he considered his positions carefully, and once he took a position he owned it and never went back on his word. He was compassionate and magnanimous with everyone, from his cabinet secretaries (Chase) and generals (McClellan! the scoundrel), from whom he tolerated many affronts because they served a larger purpose; to court-martialed soldiers, whom he took any opportunity to pardon, if he could.

Goodwin observes at the end of the book that Lincoln's death was an irreparable blow to the _South_. I had not considered this. But Lincoln's compassion, and his desire to bring the South back into the Union as it was, and not break up the states in ways advantageous to the Union, or punish those who had served the Confederacy--these were what the battered and disgraced South needed. This was a sad irony I had not considered.

It's a massive book, but full of vivid detail and keen insight, and well worth the six weeks it took me to read it.

During one of the most tumultuous times in American history, Abraham Lincoln inherently understood that he needed the most capable people around him, regardless of ideological differences or political infighting, to steer the country through the crisis together. He rose above his political rivals and used empathy to not just unite his enemies but also the entire country. It's a truly amazing example of political genius.

While the book is centered around the American Civil War, this story takes place in the White House and Washington, not on the battlefield. It's a group biography about four rivals and their families, covering two presidential campaigns and all of the Washington infighting during the Civil War era. When Lincoln gave cabinet posts to the better-known trio he beat to the 1860 Republican nomination - William Seward, Salmon Chase and Edward Bates - this Team of Rivals became instrumental in preserving the nation and ending slavery in America.

Lincoln's rivals are bursting with extreme egos and personal agendas, which keeps the reader swinging from frustration, amusement, and just pure admiration for Lincoln's self-restraint and leadership skills. And Doris Kearns Goodwin writes Lincoln as very relatable despite his remarkable accomplishments. While he is known for great resilience, he was still deeply affected throughout his life, sometimes to the point of depression, by family tragedies and major setbacks. And despite the seriousness of his responsibilities, Lincoln was still a fun guy, he loved to tell jokes and bring a crowd to laugher with his humorous stories.

This book is absolutely brilliant, wonderfully written and incredibly accessible. Nothing I write here is really going to do it justice. There are so many valuable lessons to be learned from it about leadership, empathy, and patience. I originally read this book about 10 years ago, and I loved it just as much the second time around. It no doubt ranks among the best biographies I've ever read, and it claims a spot among my all-time favorite books. I think all the wisdom packed into this book makes it an essential read for anyone, but for both leaders and American history lovers, this is an absolute must-read.

“Team of Rivals” is an extraordinary work that sheds light on an aspect of the Lincoln presidency that many avid historical readers probably know little or nothing about, the presidential race of 1860 and the presidency of Abraham Lincoln as seen through the lenses of his cabinet and his dealings with them.
This lengthy book never feels like one, and the research and vividness with which Doris Kearns Goodwin draws these historical giants is a delight to absorb. I am a bit of a Civil War buff, but this text created in me a whole new appreciation for the political genius of Abraham Lincoln, and rendered members of his cabinet as more than historical footnotes. I was especially intrigued by the parts of the text dealing with Salmon Chase, who I knew only the most rudimentary things about. I will leave it to other readers to render their own verdict about him.
There are many strengths to this text, and one leaves it with an appreciation for just how much Lincoln and his closest advisers carried on their shoulders. Goodwin calls Lincoln the “poet president” and as you read some of the things he wrote you cannot help but be amazed at his facility with, and economy of, the use of language.
How many historical texts leave you amazed, floored, appreciative, and even teary at times? “Team of Rivals” is a biography of a group of people and it is a testament to Goodwin’s skills that none of them come off as caricatures or as less than complex.
This is a book that deserves to be widely read.

(I thought it would make sense to start this while I'm still reading Gone With the Wind.)

This isn't a straight-up biography of Lincoln. And it's certainly not a history of the Civil War. Instead it's a portrait of Lincoln, defined by the diverse men he surrounded himself with on his Cabinet. In particular, Goodwin focuses on the 4 major contenders in the Republican national convention: Lincoln, Seward, Chase and Bates. The better part of the book takes place leading up to Lincoln's 1860 election to his death in 1865.

It's a fascinating, fabulous look at the politics behind the man. I'll be honest: politics - the rhetoric, the deal-making, the personal wrangling - bores me to tears. In addition, the details and minutia of war generally bores me silly. (I'm looking at you War & Peace!) Although quite necessarily, this book is mostly about these two things, politics and the U.S. Civil War, I was enthralled. Never before had details of when, where and how to make decisions seemed to be more vital to elucidate the nature of a man.

And it's really hard not to fall in love with Lincoln. The focus of the book, that Lincoln chose to surround himself with opposing personal advisers in Washington and Generals on the battlefield, not only shows his self-assured character to deal with warring factions but also shows his wont and need to ponder all sides of an argument before reaching a decision. What struck me the most about Lincoln, however, is his ability to let criticisms roll off his back, maintain his composure, and disarm people with a quick joke or story. If only I could have met Lincoln to hear some of these retorts in person!

I should mention that Goodwin doesn't shy away from Lincoln's mistakes or lapses in judgment. Particularly surprising was his gathering of free black leaders from the North at the White House to propose a plan of resettling all blacks residing in the U.S. to a new settlement somewhere in Central or South America. Luckily that proposal didn't go much further than that meeting. He occasionally let the temper get the best of him, but was quick to mend the broken fences.

I also appreciated Goodwin's inclusion of the women behind and beside Lincoln and his leaders. She presents quite a balanced portrait of these remarkable and distinguished women. It's quite clear that many of the men relied on their wives and daughters for council at work and with personal relationship. Mary Todd Lincoln was something else. Despite her wild mood swings, Lincoln by all accounts remained calm and kind to her. It's a pretty fascinating relationship, and not one I can understand or relate to.

After finishing the book, my first reaction is to immediately pick up other Lincoln books. (By the way, the page count is a bit deceiving - in the paperback edition, there's 'only' 757 pages of text. The rest are index and extensive bibliography.) The natural one to go to would be John Nicolay and John Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A Biography, but it's a 7 volume work! There are many condensed copies out there. Hay and Nicolay were Lincoln's personal secretaries/assistants who slept in the White House, and were quite intimate with Lincoln. The other book I'm dying to get to - because it's subject isn't really covered in Team of Rivals is Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer. Likewise, I'm eager to read Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. And I think Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era would round out my Civil War education nicely. Feel free to throw any other suggestions my way!

I’ve been reading presidential biographies for decades, so you’d think by now I would have gotten around to this - one of the most celebrated and most admired recent books about one of our most celebrated and admired presidents. But I’d long deferred it, either because I felt like I already knew a lot about Lincoln and wanted to spend my time reading about more obscure presidents, or because I was a little worried I wouldn’t absolutely love this book the way so many others do. So any time it beckoned me from the shelf, I instead picked up something else. The anticipation of someday reading it somehow seemed more appealing than the thought of actually sitting down to read it and no longer having it to look forward to.

But I had resolved a couple of years ago to start at the beginning and work my way through all the presidential biographies on my shelf that I had not yet read. So it finally came time to tackle Team of Rivals. 

As everyone knows by now, Goodwin aimed to reframe a familiar story, presenting a Lincoln biography that concentrates on Lincoln as a leader by placing a particular focus on those he led. So the book starts as something of a quadruple biography of Lincoln and his main rivals for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination who later became members of his Cabinet - William Seward, Salmon Chase and Edward Bates. 

We all absorb the story of Abraham Lincoln from a young age. But those who are only casually acquainted with Lincoln can be a bit hazy on the details about his rivals-turned-colleagues - Seward, well, he was the one who ended up buying Alaska, right? Chase is the answer to the trivia question about who was pictured on the $10,000 bill. And was Bates the one with the funny beard? Or was that Stanton? 

To those more acquainted with Lincoln, the tales Goodwin tells about him are familiar ones. Less familiar are the stories of the others, which Goodwin rectifies here by providing much more fleshed-out portraits of each than most other Lincoln biographies, in which the others just pop into the picture when Lincoln becomes president, and you never really get to know them as politicians and people in their own right. Here, interspersed throughout the book, are the stories of the rivals’ lives, their political views, their ambitions, their relationships with Lincoln, their families and their fates. They’re not mere props in Lincoln’s story, but supporting players with their own stories - up to and including the assassination attempt on Seward, which is thoroughly and dramatically described here from Seward’s perspective, as compared to other books that treat the incident as an afterthought to the assassination of Lincoln himself.

But the story of the newly-elected president who magnanimously chose his three greatest rivals to serve as his top advisers is not quite as neat as Goodwin attempts to make it. It seems at times as though she settled on a structure for her story, then tried to force the story to fit her structure. While Bates initially gets equal billing with the other “rivals,” for example, his co-starring role in the story seems inflated, because he was nowhere near as much of a political force or an influential Cabinet member as Seward or Chase. 

And Goodwin virtually ignores Simon Cameron, another presidential rival-turned-Cabinet-member, by literally rewriting history: "At the end of the first ballot,” she writes of the convention, “the tally stood: Seward 173 1/2; Lincoln 102; Chase 49; Bates 48" - neglecting to mention that Cameron had 50 1/2! Why isn’t he part of what ought to be a quintuple biography? Is it because Cameron wasn’t considered as viable a presidential rival as the others (even though he had more first-ballot votes than two of them)? Or is it because his selection as Secretary of War turned out to be a bad mistake, which would mess up the more rose-colored thesis of Goodwin’s story? And what to make of Edwin Stanton, who was ultimately a much more important player in Lincoln’s Cabinet, but didn’t fit the bill as one of the original “rivals” and therefore plays a lesser role in the book’s quadruple-biographical structure? 

Once the Lincoln presidency and the Civil War is underway, the multi-biographical structure requires frequent detours into the lives of the “rivals,” even when they distract from the more important main narrative. We’re treated to side stories about Seward’s wife, for example, and way too many stories about Chase’s daughter Kate, none of which really have anything to do with the bigger picture, and seem to serve only as a way to keep the rivals’ stories in there, because that’s the stated structure of the book, after all. 

Goodwin also smooths the rough edges of Mary Lincoln so much that she’s barely recognizable here. While a biographer like Michael Burlingame has been faulted for offering nothing but overly-harsh criticisms of Mary, Goodwin takes a completely opposite tack, glossing over and explaining away most of Mary’s well-documented outbursts and episodes of bad behavior. When ignoring such behavior proves to be impossible, such as when describing Mary’s embarrassing tirades when visiting with General Grant at the front late in the war, Goodwin only gently touches on them and weakly suggests that they were out of character for her.

Even Lincoln’s secretaries Nicolay and Hay, who absolutely loathed Mary, are described as “irreverently” calling her “the Hellcat,” as though they were just “irreverently” joking around with her.

Issues of substance aside, Goodwin’s writing style is superb. She can succinctly explain in a sentence or two what more academic works can spend chapters on. She doesn’t dwell on minutiae, and she crafts a real story rather than a chronicle of events. So for that, I give her great credit. 

I couldn’t help but think she was somewhat haunted by her earlier plagiarism scandal while writing this book, however, since she includes so very many direct quotes from secondary sources within the narrative. She quotes many other historians by name throughout the book, and sometimes includes quotes in her text with attribution only in the end notes, so it’s unclear whom she’s quoting or why, especially when they’re not always unique thoughts that she’s quoting but mere turns of phrases that she apparently liked (in one instance, the phrase “a snowballing process” is rendered in quotes and cited - she couldn’t have put such a simple description into her own words?) Given her history, I suppose it’s better to be safe than sorry when citing her sources, but so frequently quoting other historians gives the entire book the air of a synthesis, as though she relied more on secondary sources than she might actually have.

In the end, this is a very well-written, easy-to-read, enjoyable book that uses Lincoln’s story to impart relatable lessons of leadership. The simple conclusion is that Lincoln graciously set aside political rivalries to choose the best possible Cabinet; the more complicated conclusion is that Lincoln decided to keep his enemies close, where they could cause less political damage than they could from the outside; and the cynical conclusion is that the Cabinet was so fractious, and Lincoln was constantly mediating disputes, so maybe appointing all these rivals wasn’t such a good idea after all. But Goodwin’s story is an optimistic and somewhat gauzy view of history, so you won’t find anything approaching that kind of cynicism here. 

And now I have read it. While I’m glad I did, I think I was right - that the anticipation of someday reading the book was somehow more enjoyable than no longer having it to look forward to.

Absolutely brilliant nonfiction for American History buffs! The book focuses on Lincoln's decision making processes during his presidency and the interactions he had with his cabinet and closest political advisors, most of whom were his rivals for the 1860 Republican Presidential nomination.

Rediscover Lincoln’s Brilliant Leadership

Team of Rivals is a brilliant look at Abraham Lincoln and his cabinet appointees and how they all shaped the American Civil War. Lincoln seemingly appeared a political neophyte in many ways when he was elected president. Without question Lincoln faced the worst crisis in US history, when after his election, many slave holding states seceded from the union. Doris Kearns Goodwin brilliantly showed how Lincoln had wisely assembled and then led his cabinet through this tumultuous time, even though the cabinet often adamantly disagreed, and sometimes even worked at cross purposes to undermine each other. Popular opinion at first was that Lincoln was the weak link among this group of politicians, and was led to certain political positions, especially at the hands of Secretary of State William Seward. Kearns shows that Lincoln however was adept at gathering people with diverse views, valuing their positions, and then reaching his own conclusions about the final action to take. As a brilliant leader, Lincoln was willing to evolve his views of the critical issues of the day. The prime example is how he arrived at issuing his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Emancipation wasn’t a fait accompli when Lincoln first became president, yet his view evolved as the complexities of the war played out month after month as he realized that the most important way to end the war was to end slavery in the states in rebellion. Even after issuing the Proclamation, the fate of the freed slaves was still uncertain, yet Lincoln steadfastly stood behind his groundbreaking document and wouldn’t waiver in his support for freedom for those former slaves. Lincoln also was masterful in understanding public opinion, perhaps uniquely among politicians of his era and before. He seemed to be at the forefront of knowing when the public would support him and when not. All of this made him a highly effective president, war-time leader, and most importantly, shaper of groundbreaking moral values. I found this book to be a well-written and engrossing read, and it certainly helped me understand Lincoln and his leadership style much more. While I have always revered him, this book helped me see him in a new light. The prime example was how he wrote the Gettysburg Address, his most famous speech. After reading about how it evolved, I read those words with a completely different understanding that after 35 years of study of them I hadn’t seen before. While not a quick read, Team of Rivals allows the reader to discover a much deeper appreciation of Lincoln’s brilliance.

A monumental brilliantly written work. I have read many history books about the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln. This is without a doubt one of the best. The book focuses on Lincoln and his cabinet using mostly primary sources and therefore gives the reader an insight not only into the events of the time but of the individuals involved in shaping those events. It makes one yearn that our country could have leaders like this again. Particularly Lincoln, but unfortunately a man like him comes along perhaps once in a millennium. Highly recommended.

Very well written, this substantial book tells the life story of Abraham Lincoln while chronologically detailing the functioning of the executive branch of the United States government during his administration. The battles of the Civil War are in the background. Some knowledge of them would be helpful, but not necessary.

Goodwin paints a very complimentary portrait of Lincoln. On the one hand, she regards him as exceptional from his earliest years. Having had no more than a year of formal education, an illiterate father and stepmother, and a hardscrabble life as a farm worker, he displayed great ambitions early on, basically educating himself through a successful bar examination. By this time he had mastered the political arts, both in his private and his public life. Although a rather normative racist for his time and region, his views on that and on other matters evolved over time--always, according to Goodwin, in a compassionate direction. This view, seeing him as indeed 'the great liberator', was notably shared by such as Frederick Douglass, who had come to know him personally.

Personally, having devoted some considerable time to studying the years of the Civil War, I find this book on a par, so far as readability and heartfulness are concerned, with Bruce Catton's two trilogies, all of which I strongly recommend.

I finally finished this! I don’t even remember when I started it lol. It’s not a book to breeze through. I got through it by reading a little bit each day. I’m making it sound like a chore but it’s not. I learned a ton. It doesn’t read like a stuffy history book.

Also, it’s a physically heavy book. I used it as a bench press and for leg lifts when I wasn’t reading it. I carried it as night as protection