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lh_ 's review for:
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
by Doris Kearns Goodwin
First, I’m glad I read this and 3.5 stars would be more accurate. It falls short of 4 stars because I felt like I had to bring too much of what I already know about Lincoln to this.
Unlike many Lincoln books, this one focuses on Lincoln as the politician/strategist, which IS an interesting perspective, but in doing so it sacrifices too much of the telling of Lincoln the man. So if you’ve already read biographies of Lincoln, it is nice to add this perspective to the big picture, but if you haven’t you may come away with an incomplete understanding of his character. The first quarter to half of the book focuses on mini biographies of Lincoln’s political rivals who became his cabinet, and in general I’m not a fan of mini biographies. There’s not enough space to show a compelling picture and it felt a bit disjointed when pulling them all together to support the perspective. The backstories just didn’t add enough to Lincoln’s story for how much space they took up. For example, Chase is a workaholic, staunch abolitionist, very religious, and has a ton of political ambition for the Presidency, but knowing about how he grew up and a bunch of details in pre political life doesn’t really add a ton of info about Lincoln supporting and at times tolerating him in the cabinet. I just didn’t get much about Lincoln from the others’ early biographies. The rivals’ biographies generally stop when Lincoln wins the nomination and the story of Lincoln working with them continues, and I think Goodwin is at her best for the rest of the book.
One other note worthy take I’ll mention is Goodwin is very sympathetic to Mary Todd Lincoln and I learned some things that she did during the war that I didn’t recall from other biographies, potentially because of her writing style.
Unlike many Lincoln books, this one focuses on Lincoln as the politician/strategist, which IS an interesting perspective, but in doing so it sacrifices too much of the telling of Lincoln the man. So if you’ve already read biographies of Lincoln, it is nice to add this perspective to the big picture, but if you haven’t you may come away with an incomplete understanding of his character. The first quarter to half of the book focuses on mini biographies of Lincoln’s political rivals who became his cabinet, and in general I’m not a fan of mini biographies. There’s not enough space to show a compelling picture and it felt a bit disjointed when pulling them all together to support the perspective. The backstories just didn’t add enough to Lincoln’s story for how much space they took up. For example, Chase is a workaholic, staunch abolitionist, very religious, and has a ton of political ambition for the Presidency, but knowing about how he grew up and a bunch of details in pre political life doesn’t really add a ton of info about Lincoln supporting and at times tolerating him in the cabinet. I just didn’t get much about Lincoln from the others’ early biographies. The rivals’ biographies generally stop when Lincoln wins the nomination and the story of Lincoln working with them continues, and I think Goodwin is at her best for the rest of the book.
One other note worthy take I’ll mention is Goodwin is very sympathetic to Mary Todd Lincoln and I learned some things that she did during the war that I didn’t recall from other biographies, potentially because of her writing style.