Ozymandias's Reviews > Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

An unfortunately addictive book. It reads like a fine novel despite being an accurate account of the time. The book really takes an intelligent view of Lincoln's presidency by not focusing on him but on how he interacted with the members of his cabinet. This is a team-building book. As such, we find out just as much about his cabinet members as about him. Goodwin is a very insightful writer and seems to understand what made these people tick very well indeed. What we get is a series of sharply and sympathetically drawn character studies that intermingle after the Republican convention of 1860. Drawing his cabinet members from his rivals for office was an amazingly self-confident action on behalf of Lincoln. Especially when you consider that he'd never been much more than a backwoods lawyer before this point. But his incredible ability to get people to work together allowed him to bring the most competent men of the age into his government.