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Team of Rivals: Book summary and reviews of Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Team of Rivals

The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin X
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
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Book Summary

On May 18, 1860, in the midst of the nominating battle at the Republican National Convention, four contenders – Lincoln, Seward, Chase and Bates – wait in their hometowns for the results of the balloting in Chicago. Seward, Chase and Bates were political visionaries whose national reputations towered over Lincoln's. When they vied with Lincoln for the presidential nomination and lost, each was astonished at his defeat to this relatively obscure and inexperienced prairie lawyer. Through the 1850s, the four had intertwined with the creation of a sectional Republican party. Each positioned himself to lead the nation. That Lincoln emerges to win the race is the result of character traits forged by life experiences that separated him from his rivals and provided him with advantages that were unrecognized at the time and would prove his political adroitness and eventual greatness.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

'Starred & boxed review. Goodwin supplies capable biographies of the gentlemen on whom she has chosen to focus, and ably highlights the sometimes tangled dynamics of their "team" within the larger assemblage of Lincoln's full war cabinet.' - PW
'Starred Review. Lincoln redux. Nevertheless, popular historian Goodwin offers fresh ground by which to judge the almost overdone sixteenth president.' - Booklist.
'Illuminating and well-written, as are all of Goodwin's presidential studies; a welcome addition to Lincolniana.' - Kirkus Reviews.

This information about Team of Rivals was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Doris Kearns Goodwin Author Biography

Doris Kearns Goodwin is the author of the runaway bestseller Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. She won the Pulitzer Prize in history for No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II and is also the author of the bestsellers Wait Till Next Year, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, and Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. She lives in Concord, Massachusetts, with her husband, Richard N. Goodwin.

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