Just finished this wonderful journey a few minutes ago... bittersweet, on one hand, proud of finishing it so quickly (for me) and on the other, it feels as if i've departed from some dear friends.

This book was simply wonderful, miss goodwin did an excellent/amazing job of writing about the journey of lincoln and his 'mixture of chaos' cabinet... each of these men had their own distintive voice/personality, Lincoln rallied them all together as only he could.

You got a brief but intimate glimpse into the lives of each person... it felt as though you were there with them through their tragedies, strife, happiness, I held my breath during the early days of the Administration when everyone was "learning" how to navigate through the War.... I was literally swept back in time to Washington :)

Also like that we got a better glimpse into Mary Lincoln, all I had known about her previously was that she had some mental problems, i was touched at the way she cared for the Union soldiers and didn't flaunt what she did... despite her faults, she tried her best to a good person (felt for her having migraines as well)... can't imagine the pain of losing one child, let alone two as she did. You can she and abe loved/cared for each other very much.

Even though I knew what was going to happen, i was still on the edges of my seat.. racing through the pages, I wanted to reach through the pages to warn Abraham not oto go to Fords :( Tears were welling up in my eyes when the grief of Lincoln's circle and the nation were described. The 'epilogue' at the end was a nice touch, briefly outlining what happened to everyone afterwards.

They were the best men of their time, come together at just the right moments to win back the nation... they were truly fit to the times they born into. If I could travel back in time, these men would the first I would want to meet (though Chase and me would not get along haha).

The size of the book made me blink and I was a little afraid the book would be dull/dry in the writing but Doris Kearns Goodwin's "narrative abilities" (to quote another reviewer) are lyrical;/flowing/passionate, you can tell she loves what she writes about and that really helps the reader.

Lincoln was a complex, amazing ordinary man... a true inspiration... you don't have to agree with his politics to know was a great man, who never gave up and cared deeply about his country and her people.

a truly compelling read... definitely worth your time... don't be put off by the size of the book (754 pages' before author's notes), its become near and dear to my heart, can't recommend it high enough :) Definitely worth your hard-earned time... will definitely be looking up other members of the Cabinet as well :).

Review edited on 2/21/13 (stupid computer problems), ignore typos please haha

This was one of the most extraordinary books I have read in a very long time. The book is 757 pages long. Superbly edited -- not one word is wasted. It is so beautifully written that it reads like a novel. I learned so much about Lincoln, his cabinet and the political world of the time. These are just a few things -- very few -- that was a revelation to me.

1) Women played a major role in their husbands,fathers, brothers political lives. Some even worked as the manager of their male partners campaigns. An educated woman's opinion and influence was a powerful force in the mid 1800's. Seward's wife, for example, constantly goaded him about his policies toward slavery. Seward accepted both her advice and her help in winning elections and in developing policies.

2) Lincoln was a brilliant political strategist. Page 236, Kearns writes: "WIth the Republican National Convention set to begin the following week, Lincoln could rest easy in the knowledge that he had used his time well. Though he often claimed to be a fatalist, declaring that "what is to be will be, and no prayers of ours can reverse the decree," his diligence and shrewd strategy in the months prior to the convention belied his claim. More than all of his opponents combined, the country lawyer and local politician had toiled skillfully to increase his chances to become the Republican nominee for President."

3) There were "battleground" states in 1860 -- Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. As Kearns wrote (page 239) "These battleground states lay along the southern tier of the North; they all bordered on slave states; they would play a decisive role in choosing a nominee." Those battleground states were also important in wining the Presidential election. (Sounds a little like our own day, doesn't it?)

4) Lincoln was accused of being tardy, hesitating and vacillating policy of the President of the United States. Lincoln responded by saying that he might move with frustrating deliberation on large issues, but he did not vacillate. "I think it cannot be shown that when I have once taken a position, I have never retreated from it." That reminded me of President Obama. In fact a number of things that Lincoln did, from how he influenced his base to what we would now call "grassroots community organizing" is very similar to what President Obama has done and is doing to get the voters on his side in order to make and change policy.

5) Seward helped Lincoln write his first Inaugural address. Lincoln revised it by adding his poetic touch. For example, Seward wrote: "The mystic chords which proceeding from so many battle fields and so many patriot graves pass through all the hearts and all the hearths in this broad continent of ours will yet again harmonize in their ancient music when breathed upon by the guardian angel of the nation" Lincoln turned Seward's prose into poetry. Lincoln wrote: "I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break out bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." (Page 326).

6) Stephen Douglas had a very long public debate with William Seward. Seward interrupted to ask for an explanation of something Douglas had said. Douglas responded: "Ah, you can't crawl behind that free nigger dodge." In reply Seward said" Douglas, no man will ever be the President of the United States who spells negro with two gs."

Brilliant book. I am so glad I read it. Doris Kearns Goodwin is wonderful scholar and historian. "The Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" is well worth the time it takes to read over 700 pages of text.

“Looking once more to broaden the appeal of the Whig Party, Seward advocated measures to attract the Irish and German Catholic immigrants who formed the backbone of the state Democratic Party. He called on his fellow Americans to welcome them with “all the sympathy which their misfortunes at home, their condition as strangers here, and their devotion to liberty, ought to excite.” He argued that America owed all the benefits of citizenship to these new arrivals, who helped power the engine of Northern expansion. In particular, he proposed to reform the school system, where the virulently anti-Catholic curriculum frightened immigrants away, dooming vast numbers to illiteracy, poverty, and vice. To get these children off the streets and provide them with opportunities to advance, Seward hoped to divert some part of the public school funds to support parochial schools where children could receive instruction from members of their own faith.”

“Johnson believed that “in dealing with the public, Lincoln’s heart was greater than his head, while Stanton’s head was greater than his heart.” The antithetical styles are typified in the story of a congressman who had received Lincoln’s authorization for the War Department’s aid in a project. When Stanton refused to honor the order, the disappointed petitioner returned to Lincoln, telling him that Stanton had not only countermanded the order but had called the president a damned fool for issuing it. “Did Stanton say I was a d——d fool?” Lincoln asked. “He did, sir,” the congressman replied, “and repeated it.” Smiling, the president remarked: “If Stanton said I was a d——d fool, then I must be one, for he is nearly always right, and generally says what he means. I will step over and see him.”...[...]..”

‘Few war ministers have had such real personal affection and respect for their king or president as Mr. Stanton had for Mr. Lincoln,” a contemporary observed. Both had suffered great personal losses, and both were haunted all their days by thoughts of mortality and death. When Stanton was eighteen, a cholera epidemic had spread through the Midwest. Victims were buried as quickly as possible in an effort to contain the plague. Learning that a young friend had been buried within hours of falling ill, Stanton panicked, fearing that “she had been buried alive while in a faint.” He raced to the grave, where, with the help of a medical student friend, he exhumed her body to determine if she was truly dead. Contact with the body led to his own infection and near death from cholera. When his beloved wife, Mary, died ten years later, he insisted on including her wedding ring, valuable pieces of her jewelry, and some of his correspondence in her casket. He spent hours at her gravesite, and when he could not be there, he sent an employee to stand guard.
That Lincoln was also preoccupied with death is clear from the themes of many of his favorite poems that addressed the ephemeral nature of life and reflected his own painful acquaintance with death. He particularly cherished “Mortality,” by William Knox, and transcribed a copy for the Stantons.

Oh! Why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of lightning, a break of the wave,
He passeth from life to his rest in the grave.

He could recite from memory “The Last Leaf,” by Oliver Wendell Holmes, and once claimed to the painter Francis Carpenter that “for pure pathos” there was “nothing finer . . . in the English language” than the six-line stanza:

The mossy marbles rest
On lips that he has prest
In their bloom,
And the names he loved to hear Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.

Yet, beyond sharing a romantic and philosophical preoccupation with death, the commander in chief and the secretary of war shared the harrowing knowledge that their choices resulted in sending hundreds of thousands of young men to their graves. Stanton’s Quaker background made the strain particularly unbearable. As a young man, he had written a passionate essay decrying society’s exaltation of war. “Why is it,” he asked, that military generals “are praised and honored instead of being punished as malefactors?” After all, the work of war is “the making of widows and orphans—the plundering of towns and villages—the exterminating & spoiling of all, making the earth a slaughterhouse.” Though governments might argue war’s necessity to achieve certain objectives, “how much better might they accomplish their ends by some other means? But if generals are useful so are butchers, and who will say that because a butcher is useful he should be honored?”
Three decades after writing this, Stanton found himself responsible for an army of more than 2 million men. “There could be no greater madness,” he reasoned, “than for a man to encounter what I do for anything less than motives that overleap time and look forward to eternity.” Lincoln, too, found the horrific scope of the burden hard to fathom. “Doesn’t it strike you as queer that I, who couldn’t cut the head off of a chicken, and who was sick at the sight of blood, should be cast into the middle of a great war, with blood flowing all about me?”
Like Stanton, the president tried to console himself that the Civil War, however terrible, represented a divine will at work in human affairs. The previous year, he had granted an audience to a group of Quakers, including Eliza Gurney. “If I had had my way,” he reportedly said during the meeting, “this war would never have been commenced; if I had been allowed my way this war would have been ended before this, but we find it still continues; and we must believe that He permits it for some wise purpose of his own, mysterious and unknown to us; and though with our limited understandings we may not be able to comprehend it, yet we cannot but believe, that He who made the world still governs it.”

I sort of knew how this book was going to end (spoiler alert!), but I was still sad when Lincoln died. I picked it up because of all of the Obama hype, and I now understand why a president would want to emulate Lincoln. But it's one thing to say, this is the kind of man I want to be, and another, to not learn from his mistakes. Some of Lincoln's cabinet picks (and former rivals) worked out well -- Edwin Stanton and William Seward, for example. But things didn't work out so well with Salmon P. Chase. Chase couldn't set aside his own presidential ambitions in order to be a good Treasury Secretary. The guy was working on his own presidential bid against Lincoln from within the cabinet. Chase wasn't exactly a team player. After Chase resigned from his cabinet position, Lincoln rewarded him with a little job as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Chase wasn't satisfied with this, and ran for president one more time before he died. Moral of the story? Lincoln's team of rivals was a good idea to some extent (these guys also happened to be great political minds, btw, he wasn't plucking some person out of obscurity, like McCain with Sarah Palin, e.g.), but maybe he should have been wary of picking someone (Chase) with such an intense presidential fever.

I was given this book by one of my mentors. Lincolns ability to unite people under one common goal was a great lesson in leadership.

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.

Just an absolutely fabulous read. Kearns Goodwin follows Lincoln and each of his Cabinet members through their formative years and into the White House. The Cabinet members come to life through richly revealing memoirs and diaries. Lincoln, coming from a more impoverished background comes to life mostly through the loving recollection of others. The fascinating spine of the book is how Lincoln is continually misjudged by everyone he encounters. Most simply dismiss him as a hick getting by on bumkin luck. But eventually, those who dismiss, dislike or even despise him are ultimately won over. His charm and good humor are well known, but what won over his doubters was the determined nature of his kindness, never holding a grudge and consideration of the big picture vs. our individual conceits. This admiration of others brings the book to a devastating conclusion when the inevitable assasination occurs. The heartbreak felt by those close to him and the nation at large has been wonderfully set up by the previous 700 pages.

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.

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.

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.

Solid 4 Stars: Intricate details spin an illuminating web around this historical colossus.

We all know about Lincoln, one of the greatest presidents ever, and are well versed in the legend and legacy of Lincoln — but what about the man behind the public persona?

This book pulls back the curtain and humanizes Lincoln, brining him to life through the wide array of lives closest to him, providing a fresh view of his vivid personality, strength of character, and unflagging belief in his country.

Lincoln was a master statesman, handling and maneuvering men remotely as pieces upon a chessboard. As soon as he secured the Republican nomination, he set about enlisting the help of the very men who had fought him for it — Chase, Bates, Seward, and Stanton. These men transitioned from adversaries into his most loyal allies, a true team of rivals.

Author Doris Kearns Goodwin admits in the intro that some of her assumptions about Lincoln were incorrect at the outset—Lincoln was not a depressive individual, but actually one of the most even tempered of all of his colleagues. He had a gift for story telling, and a “life affirming sense of humor” — both were news to me.

Other tidbits that took me by surprise:

— Details about Mary Lincoln, including her temper, migraines, and carriage accident

— Walt Whitman worked as a nurse for wounded soldiers

— Lincoln considered colonization of the freed slaves?!?

Thought to Consider:

“Without the march of events that led to the civil war, Lincoln still would have been a good man, but most likely would never have been publicly recognized as a great man. It was history that gave him with the opportunity to manifest his greatness, providing the stage that allowed him to shape and transform our national life.”

Favorite Quotes:

“As he had done so many times before, Lincoln withstood the storm of defeat by replacing anguish over an unchangeable past with hope in an uncharted future.”

"'Washington was a typical American. Napoleon was a typical Frenchman, but Lincoln was a humanitarian as broad as the world. He was bigger than his country — bigger than all the Presidents together. We are still too near to his greatness,' Tolstoy concluded, 'but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do. His genius is still too strong and too powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when it's light beams directly on us.'”

This was excellent. Lincoln was an amazing man. And Doris Kearns Goodwin took a fascinating angle on his life and presidency.

Here's my main take away:
What do we do with competitors? People who want what we have? We outmaneuver them, right? Then we dismiss them. Not Lincoln. He defeated his political opponents and appointed them to his cabinet, and actually to his inner circle of friends! And many of these competitors were more respected and skilled than Lincoln. But that didn't phase the president. He wasn't going to deprive the country of their services, nor himself of their skill. He knew who he was. And, without insecurity or condescension, he took this team of rivals and transformed them into a band of brothers, all the while, guiding a nation through it's darkest hour.

And as for the story, I honestly felt like I took a journey through this man's life. Goodwin did a great job of bringing Lincoln to life in such a way that he was real and lovable. When she wrote about his body being trained back to Illinois, it felt like you were actually there, experiencing the nation's sorrow. Lincoln acquired epic status the moment he died. Lincoln was not perfect, by any means, and the aftermath of his family life was actually quite sad - as is the case for many towering figures. But, wow, much to digest here. Good on so many levels.

I'd say the one weakness of the book was its length (41 hours on audiobook - that's a long time), but never did I feel like quitting. Goodwin's prose and Suzanne Toren's narration was simply exquisite.