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Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (平装)
by Doris Kearns Goodwin
| Category:
Biography, American Civil War, Leadership, American history |
| Market price: ¥ 218.00
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| MSL Pointer Review:
An amazing biography of Abraham Lincoln, a man of remarkable courage and self-confidence and an unmatched leader. |
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AllReviews |
1 Total 1 pages 10 items |
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Betty King (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-18 00:00>
Doris Kearns Goodwin has added an important element to our understanding of Lincoln. This a biography not just of one of our greatest presidents but of the politicians and administrators who were part of his cabinet, the Congress and his official family while he was in the White House. She deftly illustrates Lincoln's "political genius" - his ability to bind men who had run against him for president or otherwise opposed him by incorporating them into his cabinet and/or administration and earning first their respect and then their affection. His brilliance and his extraordinary patience and generosity have never been more clearly illustrated. If a Bob Woodward or Frank Rich had written about Lincoln in the 1860s, this is probably the kind of insight readers would have had.
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Philip Pogson (MSL quote), Australia
<2007-01-18 00:00>
I am not expert in either Civil War history or Abraham Lincoln but was attracted to this mult-headed biography by the notion of the complexity of personalities Lincoln had to manage in order to draw together an effective Cabinet. Obtaining this end, effective government, was made infinitely more challenging by the fact several of these talented individuals had been pipped at the post by Lincoln whose drive and guile they underestimated in the race for the Republican Presidential nomination.
Equally, the challenge Kearns Goodwin set herself in attempting the many-faceted biography of several multi-faceted men should not be underestimated. Her acheivement in producing a work of this calibre is of the highest order. Kearns-Goodwin's capacity to layout and then integrate the background and personality of Lincoln and each of his "rivals" constantly surprised and delighted me both in terms of her insight into each person's strengths and foibles and her humanity in uncovering them. The tensions surrounding day to day government in wartime such as Cabinet meetings, raising funds, managing logistics and the frustrations and tragedies war are keenly described.
Equally, on a more day to day level I was profoundly moved by her capacity to convey the personal horror felt by Lincoln and his wife at the death of their son and the sometime spiteful treatment Washington society doled out to Mrs Lincoln perhaps as a surrogate for direct assault on the lowly backgound of the President himself.
As an Australian, I feel I am both a broader human being and, in a way, enobled through more deeply understanding Lincoln, his government, and this important period of American history.
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-18 00:00>
Doris Kearns Goodwin has written a splendid and extraordinarily insightful historical study into the life and relationships of President Lincoln and his diverse and at times, adversarial Cabinet. Writing with a keen senses and understanding on the differences of these men, the reader TRULY is given the information required regarding what Lincoln faced during his time in office in order to appreciate the magnitude of how he held this nation together while eventually politically embracing the notion that freedom for all men was the only way to keep the Union together.
The approach of studying the Cabinet and their interactions with Lincoln makes Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin a standout and complete book on Lincoln's Presidential Administration. Goodwin writes with such an easy and elegant style that readers will become absorbed quickly with this fascinating story. A significant bonus in Goodwin's prose is that the reader becomes more involved with the politics of the day by understanding the intent and motives of Lincoln's key administrative team members. From Chase to Steward to Stanton and a whole host of other players, I was riveted! Highly recommended. |
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Alfred Johnson (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-18 00:00>
During this election cycle of 2006 I have been asking myself a question. When was the last time leftist could have unambiguously supported a Republican or Democratic Party candidate. As indicate below the clear choice is the Lincoln -Johnson ticket in 1864. By a happy coincidence Doris Kearn Goodwin's book under review here provides more than enough ammunition to confirm that opinion. Normally, my concerns as a fighter for socialism and hers as a fawning devotee of the New Deal, Fair Deal and New Frontier eras of the Democratic Party are miles apart. Here we can, at least for this moment, agree that Lincoln, as a man and politician was worthy of support by militants and those not so militant.
Make no mistake Lincoln and his compatriots were big men who confronted big tasks. And did it. Underlining Goodwin's thesis is a belief that what passes for today's Republican leaders pale in contrast. Again we agree.
Today, after suffering through the likes of Herbert Hoover, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and various Bushes it is hard to believe these denizens claim the heritage of the party created by Lincoln and other stalwarts. Something went terribly wrong somewhere in the 1870's (even before the Compromise of 1877 which only codified the defeat of the aims of Reconstruction, limited as they were) and it has been downhill ever since. Nevertheless, Lincoln, Chase, Seward, Staunton, the Radical Republicans and others can claim the respect of today's militants.
When the issue was hot on the fire and there was no way around it Lincoln and his compatriots organized an army and fought a Civil War to abolish black slavery. Now, not all of their motives were pure as the driven snow, and to some extend Lincoln, in particular, had to be led kicking and screaming to fight for that aim-but in the end he did it. That is why, in this writer's opinion, it is a dicey thing to think that militants should have supported Lincoln-Hamlin in 1860. At that point Lincoln had not been tested and was essentially a sectional candidate, if that. Later he certainly passed the test. The selection of his team testifies to that.
Another reason that militants tip their hat to the Republican Party and to Lincoln is less obvious but also related to the Civil War struggle-that is the preservation of the union or more appropriately the conditions for the formation of a unitary continent-wide national capitalist state. Support for such an outcome by militants today would seem strange but back then when capitalism represented a progressive trend in human history it was not. That system allowed the productive forces of society to be developed more fully than the previous localized, slave agrarian dominated society. Think of this - if the Southern armies, dominated by the planter classes, has won or more likely had been allowed to keep their separate state it would have hampered the development of free labor to the detriment of working people. The United States would have probably become, as envisioned by some Southern thinkers, a large `banana republic' an exporter of raw materials for the world market. Today we know that capitalism has outlived its effective useful life. But, back then the gods were on our side and we were sustained by the spirit of the better angels of our natures. Hats off to Mr. Lincoln. |
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B. Breen (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-18 00:00>
I listened to this book on CD in the unabridged version which used 36 discs to cover the almost 1,000 pages of the original.
Let me tell you... listening to this book over a regular commute was a challenge, but a worthwhile one! Narrator Suzanne Toren is very effective and accents that fact that this was written by a woman, who, in researching and writing this excellent concurrent biography does a great job of capturing the nuances of relationship that are often missed in the drier more traditional forms.
Aside from an initial glimpse of Lincoln at the beginning of the book, it very much focuses on the major players of the Republican Party and their ascent to power and influence. Steward, Chase, Stanton and Bates are thoroughly examined and dissected before Lincoln himself assumes the central role much later into the book. While I found this a little frustrating at first, when Lincoln began to ease into the forefront of the book, it almost mirrors what must have been the feeling of the other protagonists as this "upstart" from Illinois assumed center stage much to their, and the nation's, surprise.
In the more military examinations of the Civil War years, it is sometimes easy to forget that this war took place in real time over 4 years and in the midst of it, there were great rises and falls in emotion and political fortunes throughout. While this book does necessarily work within the military happenings, there is not a strong effort to reference every battle and rather it moves from major offensives and battles with much the broader overview that must have been true of Lincoln and his Cabinet as well as the rest of the North.
The only criticism I have, and it is mild and perhaps understandible in the context of the days and the importance of the Vice-Presidency, is the conspicuous absence of the Vice President from any of the daily interactions and Cabinet meetings. Surely there must have been some minimal involvement worth noting or parlance within the President's working. That would seem to be on par with the Cabinet in general and so despite the length of the overall work, which unabridged is almost 1,000 pages, a few could have been spared for the humble VP?
Beyond that, this is a definitive work that anyone who takes the time to read (or listen) should come away with an appreciation of Lincoln's genius in surrounding himself with the leading talent of his era. Further, an appreciation for the subtle machinations behind the scenes driving the proclamations and political moves of the times is there to be had with careful attention.
Once of the best Lincoln works I have ever read and worthy of your time and attention! |
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Scott Hercher (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-18 00:00>
What a tremendous undertaking this book must have been. It is both a partial biography of several great men and a wonderful political history of one of the most tumultuous periods of American History. She really highlights two qualities in Abraham Lincoln. First, he must of had tremendous self-confidence to run for President at all, given that his political experience consisted of a single, unremarkable term in the House of Representatives and a failed run for the Senate. And to put together a cabinet of rivals shows that Lincoln had faith in his abilities and convictions far beyond his experience. Second, his ability to make this cmpilation of rival egos work as a team, and to win them over to his side, for the most part, shows how great Lincoln really was. Perhaps Lincoln should not be known as the Great Emancipator, but as the Great Placator since he spent much of his energy assuaging and stroking the egos in his cabinet, without ever giving in to them.
Doris Kearns Goodwin has done a great job of illustrating the greatness of Abraham Lincoln, and showing why we revere him as one of our greatest figures. After reading this book, I almost think that Lincoln is underrated as President, if that is possible. I have long felt that FDR was the greatest president; now I am not so sure, thanks to Ms. Goodwin.
I very strongly recommend this book to anyone even remotely interested in the Civil War, American History, even just great men. In fact, the story of Leo Tolstoy she relates at the end of the book is perhaps the greatest testimony to Lincoln's greatness - and it is the most poignant |
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Allen C. Guelzo (Washington Post) (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-18 00:00>
The Constitution makes no provision for a president's cabinet. After all, no one in the Constitutional Convention in 1787 ever thought the office of the president would require much more than secretarial help. If there was to be a council of state or an assembly of sage heads in the new republic, the Framers expected that it could be found in the Senate. But the Senate, as George Washington discovered, was too political and fractious a body to play that role. And the men he had invited to serve as his executive secretaries - Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Henry Knox - were of such extraordinary abilities that by the end of Washington's first administration, a "cabinet" of advisers and administrators with wide latitude to execute presidential policy was already emerging.
This did not mean that the president's cabinet acquired any predictable shape. Cabinets have been recruited by wildly different rules, from the purest cronyism (under Andrew Jackson) to the purest impartiality (under John Quincy Adams, who tried to construct a cabinet that included some of his deadliest political opponents). Sometimes cabinet secretaries have been submissive messengers of the president's will; sometimes they have used their independent political power to subvert his policies. Not even the size of the cabinet has remained stable. Washington had a cabinet of four (if we include his attorney general); John Adams added a fifth, the secretary of the navy, in 1798. George W. Bush has 15 cabinet posts, along with four other cabinet-rank executive positions. To date, almost no serious critical literature exists to give it all coherence.
Which means that the task the popular historian Doris Kearns Goodwin has set for herself in writing the history of Abraham Lincoln and his cabinet in Team of Rivals is neither easy nor immediately attractive. But this immense, finely boned book is no dull administrative or bureaucratic history; rather, it is a story of personalities - a messianic drama, if you will - in which Lincoln must increase and the others must decrease.
By the time Lincoln became president, cabinet-making had reached the point where cabinet members threatened to overshadow the president who had nominated them. The weak-kneed presidents of the 1850s - Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan - were routinely upstaged or subverted by their secretaries of war and state. And Lincoln did not look at first like any great improvement. He had earned a leading place in Republican Party politics in Illinois and snatched some fleeting national attention by challenging the mighty Stephen Douglas for the Senate in 1858 - and almost winning the Democrat's seat. But Lincoln enjoyed nothing like the stature of New York's William H. Seward, Ohio's Salmon P. Chase (the John McCain of mid-century Republicanism), Pennsylvania's Simon Cameron or Missouri's Edward Bates. Yet obscurity cut both ways: Seward, Chase and the others had spent so long in the political limelight that each had acquired a legion of unforgiving enemies. Lincoln, at least, had offended none, and so the nomination swung to him. But once elected, he had to come to terms with the damaged egos of the party's jilted, and there was no guarantee that they would defer to this little known circuit lawyer from the prairies. Losing the nomination humiliated Seward, and Chase writhed with ambition for the presidency. These were exactly the sort of advisers whom Lincoln, as an executive-branch novice, would have been well advised to keep far away from Washington. Instead, he offered the State Department to Seward, the War Department to Cameron and the Treasury to Chase, knowing that (in the days before the creation of a professional civil service) he was also handing them the keys to the federal patronage system and the opportunity to build rival political empires of their own.
Lincoln did this partly because he had no real choice. He was painfully aware of his outsider status in Washington, and with no close political allies of national stature, he had no one else to whom he could turn to give his administration political ballast. Partly, Lincoln was guided by his long association with the Whig Party. The Whigs split and disintegrated as a national political party in the mid-1850s, and Lincoln had gone over to the new Republican Party in 1856. But his old political habits retained their hold on him, including the lofty Whig assertion that they were above partisanship - statesmen rather than party hacks, dedicated to promoting national unity rather than special interests. It was entirely consistent with Lincoln's old Whig instincts to create "an administration of all the talents" (to borrow an old parliamentary phrase), even if the people he invited into it could be expected to stab him in the back.
But Lincoln's selection of a cabinet of rivals was also an expression of a shrewdness that few people could appreciate in 1861. Keeping Seward and Chase within his administration gave him more opportunities to control them and fewer opportunities for them to create political mischief. It also guaranteed that, in any controversy, he could count on Seward and Chase to back-stab each other, allowing him to emerge afterward as the all-powerful settler of disputes. And to improve his chances for command by limiting their ability to roil the political waters, Lincoln added two of his loyalists, Montgomery Blair as postmaster general and Gideon Welles as secretary of the Navy, to serve as his bulldogs if any of the others grew uppity. Seward, Chase or Bates might have uncorked this plan by simply refusing Lincoln's initial proffer of a cabinet post. But the president had correctly guessed that none of them could bring himself to refuse even secondhand prestige. From that moment, Goodwin observes, Lincoln had them in his power, and he never let them go. "He is managing this war, the draft, foreign relations, and planning a reconstruction of the Union, all at once," marveled Lincoln's secretary, John Hay, in 1863. "I never knew with what tyrannous authority he rules the Cabinet, till now. The most important things he decides and there is no cavil."
Team of Rivals tells the story of Lincoln's prudent political management as a highly personal tale, not a political or bureaucratic one. Goodwin's Seward is primarily the wounded but ultimately resilient politico who becomes Lincoln's cheerleader, rather than the manager of a vast network of diplomatic personnel and paperwork. Goodwin's Chase is the envious, holier-than-thou puritan whose passion for recognition and affirmation reduces everyone, including his daughter Kate, to a cipher for his own advancement; the book gives us very little about Chase's superb management of the Treasury. These are not novel interpretations, but the portraits are drawn in spacious detail and with great skill. In this respect, Team of Rivals is a strictly conventional sort of narrative that does not press much beyond the horizons set in 1946 by Burton J. Hendrick's classic Lincoln's War Cabinet. But good narrative in American history is what we lack, and Goodwin's narrative powers are great.
Like Seward and Hay, Goodwin comes to the close of Team of Rivals amazed and delighted to find "that Abraham Lincoln would emerge the undisputed captain of this most unusual cabinet" and thereby "prove to others a most unexpected greatness." Those who had known Lincoln before would have nodded appreciatively. Leonard Swett, who rode the Illinois circuit courts with Lincoln in the old days, once remarked that "beneath a smooth surface of candor and an apparent declaration of all his thoughts and feelings, he exercised the most exalted tact and the wisest discrimination. He handled and moved men remotely as we do pieces upon a chessboard." That "tact" saved the Union. It also mastered his cabinet. Team of Rivals will move readers to wonder whether the former might have been easier than the latter.
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Forrest Wildwood (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-18 00:00>
A lot has been written about Abraham Lincoln's life and legacy but this book is one of the few, if only, to approach from a different angle and write about Lincoln's ability to manage a hugely diverse and talented political family. Goodwin took ten years to compile this history and does an admirable job. She describes his tragedies and failures as a progression in his life instead of a deterrent. Lincoln was the kind of man that the more that is known of him the better he is liked and Goodwin certainly likes him. He was the catalyst that "kept the bottom in the tub" of his cabinet. Lincoln had the most remarkable capability to forgive and forget past wrongs... as long as the issues were not continually pressed... he didn't hold anything against anyone. The idea of never meeting anyone he didn't like or at least being able to find something positive about them is interlaced thorough out this book. His humility and talent to understand human nature can be traced to the hardships of early life, his ungainly appearance and the vicissitudes of trying to make something of himself. He had the story tellers gift and could tell stories not only to relieve tension but more importantly to underscore a point. All this served him well in the coming days. His abilities played well in choosing the men for his cabinet. All were rivals and either thought poorly of him or looked down on him as a second rate prairie lawyer. These men were certainly some of the most talented ones for their respective jobs in the cabinet. Seward, who became a genuine friend, as Sec. of State... Chase, who was financially brilliant but a thorn in the cabinet, as Sec. of Treasury... Stanton, who worked tirelessly, as Sec. of War... Bates, quiet and unassuming, as Attorney General...Wells, who built the navy from almost nothing, as Sec. of Navy...and finally Montgomery Blair, who greatly improved mail delivery, as Post Master General. All these composed a most unlikely cabinet whose ups and downs Lincoln had to balance like trying to carrying two pumpkins on a horse.
Lincoln not only had to balance the cabinet but he also had to deal with Union Generals. Trying to get McClellan to cross the James was an almost impossible task but the scant successes allow Lincoln to get his Emancipation Proclamation underway and understanding the need to have public sentiment on your side was one of the hallmarks of his administration. Lincoln possessed the foresight to moderate and mollify with Legislature, Cabinet, and Generals. Understanding the need for perfect timing, in doing anything, is the mark of a great statesman. Goodwin intersperses this book with family relationships, hardships and tragedies. She gives the Civil War battles a proper perspective and doesn't allow them to overrun the purpose of the theme. With 757 pages of text and 123 pages of notes, this is not an overnight read but one that I found very compelling and delightful. Highly recommended and well worth adding to the history shelf.
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Celtia (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-18 00:00>
Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals is one of the best historical accounts of a tumultuous period in the U.S. I have ever read, and definitely the best biographical book on Abraham Lincoln I've come across. Lincoln has been such a product of myth that I felt as if I did not really know him as a person until I read Goodwin's work. She clears away the stories and conjecture to reveal a man who was both flawed and flawless, extremely compassionate (he rarely did not commute the term of a condemned soldier to prison time) and passionate (he felt everything so keenly behind his mask of smiles and easy-going laughter that it's a wonder he did not get crushed by his responsibilities as President). But Kearns goes beyond painting a verbal portrait of Lincoln to illustrate how this totally unique individual bypassed conventional political wisdom and brought in a "team of rivals" to form his Cabinet.
From amazingly disparate elements, most of whom were former political opponents who either bested him or whom he defeated for the Republican Presidential nomination, Lincoln gathered the only group of men who could have helped him get the U.S. through the Civil War. Until I read this book I had no idea just how close we came to losing the Civil War to the Confederacy. If not for Lincoln's determination to bring the best men in the country to the Presidential table, and his astounding ability to get them to work together despite their personal character flaws (which were legion) we might today be two separate nations on our own soil.
What struck me most about Lincoln in this book was the sheer force of his will. He sought the input of his advisors on issues and when they had the better idea he went with it (if only politicians today were capable of this maturity!) but no one who knew him doubted that at the final moment when a decision was needed Lincoln would be the man to make it.
Goodwin also presents a stirring account of the twisted road Lincoln followed to the Emancipation Proclamation, how much resistance it faced even from those in the North, and how vital it was that he presented it to the U.S. when he did. His understanding of America was so great that he knew precisely when to do something. More important, he knew when not to do it.
Lincoln was a political genius and an extremely intelligent man. Goodwin illustrates this on every page of Team of Rivals, which also happens to be a cracking good read. I cannot recommend this book highly enough to anyone who wants to know more about a time, a country at war, and the amazing man who held it all together and paid for his ideals with his life. After you read "Team of Rivals" you will long for a man like Lincoln to come to the forefront of our society as much as I do.
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Joseph Haschka (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-18 00:00>
Of all the American Presidents, I admire Abraham Lincoln the most because he stalwartly endured so much: rebellious states, incompetent Federal generals, a fractious Republican Party, near-treasonous Democrats, a financially irresponsible and mentally unstable wife, and the death of a son. Finishing this thick work, my esteem for him is in no way diminished.
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin is, above all, a political biography of Lincoln as he rose through the ranks from country lawyer to Illinois state legislator to U.S. Congressman to presidential candidate to Chief Executive. As the Republican nominee for President in 1860, he beat out several formidable rivals for the nomination, including Salmon Chase, William Seward, and Edward Bates. Once elected, Lincoln was wily enough to keep his former (and potentially future) adversaries within immediate sight by cajoling them into his Cabinet - Chase at Treasury, Seward at State, and Bates as Attorney General. Thus, Team of Rivals is necessarily a political biography of each of these three men and, to a lesser degree, also one for each of the other prominent members of the Cabinet - Montgomery Blair as Postmaster General, Edwin Stanton as War Secretary (succeeding Simon Cameron), and Gideon Wells as Navy Secretary. The remarkable teamwork the Cabinet displayed to steer the Union through the darkest days of the Civil War is its, and Lincoln's, great achievement.
In her memoir of growing up, Wait Till Next Year, Goodwin is charmingly engaging. At 754 pages with two extensive photographic sections, Team of Rivals is hardly that but erudite, detailed, and lucid. The author's treatment of her subject is obviously admiring. At no point does Goodwin's narrative slime Abe's reputation with any perception which one normally ascribes to the currently incumbent band of dubious, self-serving, vacillating, and morally compromised public parasites whatever their party affiliation. Perhaps Lincoln was truly a wise and steadfastly principled man, or Goodwin just chose not to notice any blemishes. Or perhaps time itself serves as an airbrush.
It took me almost four months to gnaw my way through this lengthy volume; it's not a book I couldn't put down. For that reason, I'm knocking off a star, though I freely admit that this is more a deficiency related to my attention span than anything else. Others, not wearied by too much of a good thing, will justifiably award 5 stars.
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