December 20, 2006

I forgot to mention it until (probably) too late...

...but this would make a GREAT Christmas gift for anybody interested in American history...I give it five stars!

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It's about Lincoln and the three men who were the front-runners for the Presidential nomination of the new Republican party in 1860: William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, and Edward Bates. They and almost everybody else considered Lincoln a bumpkin and a minor figure.

But Lincoln was a far shrewder politician than they, and astonished the country by winning the nomination and the presidency. And then proceeded to put all three into his cabinet. All of them, especially Seward, expected to be the powers behind the weak man on the throne. All were quickly disabused, and discovered in Lincoln a commanding personality who won their affection and welded them into a winning team...

Posted by John Weidner at December 20, 2006 7:45 PM
Weblog by John Weidner