Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln Paperback – 12 Feb. 2009

Having recently devoured the whole of the West Wing box sets in a few weeks, I was yearning for some more American political intrigue and insights into the inner workings of the White House. Doris Kearns Goodwin's fascinating biography of Abraham Lincoln certainly delivers on that score, but is so much more than that besides. It was the book that, besides the Bible, Barack Obama chose to take into the White House with him for inspiration, and is also heartily recommended by no less than the new Labour spin doctor Alistair Campbell, as a treatise on leadership. So it certainly has a lot to live up to.Being embarrassingly ignorant about Lincoln, save that he was an American President; had something to do with the Civil War; was assassinated; and has a memorial named after him, this book has been a total revelation to me. Lincoln, who had come from an impoverished family, was a small town lawyer from Springfield, Illinois, and certainly not a name anyone would have mentioned as a favourite for the Republican presidential nomination much before his surprise triumph in 1860. He seemed to come out of nowhere to beat his rivals and established favourites for the nomination, who all came from considerably better stock than Lincoln, namely William Seward, Salmon Chase and Edward Bates. And when he won the Presidential race too, he pulled off a masterstroke, and rather than surrounding himself with his allies who had helped with his victorious campaign, he made these same three former rivals for the Republican leadership, who were still smarting from their defeat to this upstart outsider, his close cabinet members. He had obviously heard of the phrase `keep your friends close, and your enemies closer'.And it is the way that Lincoln conducted himself when President which still serves today as a master class in leadership skills. He was generous and even tempered at all times, dealing with colleagues with kindness and trust. He encouraged colleagues to criticise his speeches, so that he could make them as good as they could possibly be. And he always waited before sending out a letter which he had written in anger, to see if his views changed when his emotions had settled down. In fact some of the letters written in this spirit were never sent by him, but stayed in their sealed envelopes for posterity, and future biographers, to discover. And in this age of instant communication, how many of us wish we had never pressed `Send' on an angry e mail or two? We could certainly all learn a lot from Lincoln on that score.And he had the small matter of the American Civil war to contend with, a conflict which nearly brought the young country to its knees, and caused heartbreaking splits between communities and even within individual families, as the Unionists and Confederates battled it out for four years between 1861 and 1865. Fierce battles raged all over America, and even came perilously close to the White House itself on occasion. Kearns Goodwin relates how Lincoln, who was not originally a champion of equality between the races at all, even giving speeches regarding the superiority of the white race over black people, led the Unionists to victory, and engineered the deployment of blacks into their armies, which was a major the turning point in the war. He was the author of the Thirteenth Amendment, to the US Constitution, which abolished the slavery which the Southern Confederates were so keen to preserve.The long and detailed, but still page turning book, also gives fascinating details on the personal lives of Lincoln and his colleagues, so it is not just a book about leadership and war stratagems. Lincoln was beset by tragedy, apart from his own obvious one, as his young and beloved son Willie died of typhoid fever, a loss than he never seemed to really get over. And his wife Mary was something of a shopaholic, running up huge bills to lavishly kit out both the White House and her own wardrobe, as she thought befitted her husband's status.Whether you are looking for some inspiration on leadership skills, or an account of the politics behind the American Civil War, or simply a cracking good history book, I can't recommend this Pulitzer prize winning great book highly enough. Leo Tolstoy felt that Lincoln was `a humanitarian as broad as the world. He was bigger than his country - bigger than all the Presidents together.' It feels like we could certainly use someone like him at the moment.

Doris Kearns Goodwin deserves thanks from her readers twice over. Firstly, in the crowded field of writings on the US Civil War and on Abraham Lincoln, she has found a new and fascinating way of illuminating the man, his life and times. And secondly, having identified that opportunity, she had then written an outstanding book.Her book’s concept is simple enough. Four men (excluding also-rans) contested the Republican nomination in 1860: William Seward, Salmon Chase, Abraham Lincoln and Edward Bates. Unusually, after Lincoln won his party’s endorsement and, subsequently, the presidential election, he invited his former competitors to take seats in the cabinet – hence the book’s title. Goodwin’s is the story of how the four came to be the principle Republican candidates and how they interacted once on the same team after the election.That’s a lot of weight for a book to carry and one of its remarkable features is how lightly it does so. Despite measuring in at a little over 750 pages (or well over 900 if notes and index are included), it never plods. Partly, that’s because Goodwin doesn’t stick rigidly to her mission. The first part, leading up to 1860, is essentially four parallel biographies. The temptation, which she rightly resists, is to over-write their early lives. Instead, she focusses on the key experiences that made them who they became, on what they shared in common and where they differed: the essential building blocks of the post-1860 story. What she does write though is comprehensively researched and packed with relevant anecdote and reference. She not only brings the people to life but also the times they lived in.She also lightens the load by ensuring that it is not a Civil War book, as such. The conflict does, of course, dominate Lincoln’s presidency but she’s interested in how it was managed from DC, not the details of the campaigns themselves, unless they link into the main narrative.The four men also do not get equal billing. Lincoln, of course, is pre-eminent but the index is revealing: against Lincoln’s near-six columns of entries, Seward has three, Chase, a little over two and Bates, just one and a quarter. This, again, is as it should be. Bates’ life, for example, was not as dramatic as the other men’s, nor was he as central to the administration as Seward or Chase. Similarly, the cast extends far beyond these central characters, particularly once Lincoln becomes president and the Civil War breaks out.There is, however, a second narrative theme, revealed in the book’s sub-title. I knew (as surely does virtually everyone) that Lincoln was a great man. I hadn’t realised until I read this just how profoundly good a man he was, nor how great a politician either: two surprisingly interrelated attributes. His skill at man-management was extraordinary, helped in no small part by his exceptional patience and magnanimity.That said, it’s in Goodwin’s description of Lincoln’s political ability that I have my one reservation about her book. She doesn’t criticise him for any decision or action he took and his is implicitly described as a career virtually without error. No-one is that perfect and while I’m not a Lincoln expert, the evidence from her own book suggests to me that he was too indulgent at times towards underperforming or disloyal colleagues and commanders – Chase and McClellan being two obvious examples.I’m not particularly religious but it’s hard not to see something providential about Lincoln’s presidency. No one could have led the Union more effectively given the options available (though that was far from clear beforehand); Lincoln was a remarkable choice for candidate given his almost complete lack of experience in office; and considering his upbringing, he’d overcome tremendous obstacles simply to be in the running. How he did it is fascinating and inspiring.