Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

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Simon and Schuster, 2006 M09 26 - 916 páginas
One of the most influential books of the past fifty years, Team of Rivals is Pulitzer Prize–winning author and esteemed presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s modern classic about the political genius of Abraham Lincoln, his unlikely presidency, and his cabinet of former political foes.

Winner of the prestigious Lincoln Prize and the inspiration for the Oscar Award winning–film Lincoln, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, directed by Steven Spielberg, and written by Tony Kushner.

On May 18, 1860, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Abraham Lincoln waited in their hometowns for the results from the Republican National Convention in Chicago. When Lincoln emerged as the victor, his rivals were dismayed and angry.

Throughout the turbulent 1850s, each had energetically sought the presidency as the conflict over slavery was leading inexorably to secession and civil war. That Lincoln succeeded, Goodwin demonstrates, was the result of a character that had been forged by experiences that raised him above his more privileged and accomplished rivals. He won because he possessed an extraordinary ability to put himself in the place of other men, to experience what they were feeling, to understand their motives and desires.

It was this capacity that enabled Lincoln as president to bring his disgruntled opponents together, create the most unusual cabinet in history, and marshal their talents to the task of preserving the Union and winning the war.

We view the long, horrifying struggle from the vantage of the White House as Lincoln copes with incompetent generals, hostile congressmen, and his raucous cabinet. He overcomes these obstacles by winning the respect of his former competitors, and in the case of Seward, finds a loyal and crucial friend to see him through.

This brilliant multiple biography is centered on Lincoln's mastery of men and how it shaped the most significant presidency in the nation's history.
 

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Contenido

C During the Civil War
2
Political Map of the United States circa 1856
138
MASTER AMONG MEN
321
Second Floor of the Lincoln White House
322
CONTENTS
330
The Peninsula Campaign
424
Battlefields of the Civil War 496
459
Epilogue
751
Notes
759
Illustration Credits
881
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Página vi - Shall I tell you what this collision means ? They who think that it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces; and1 it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slave-holding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation.
Página xii - Could he, without embarrassment to you, or detriment to the service, go into your military family with some nominal rank, I, and not the public, furnishing his necessary means ? If no, say so without the least hesitation, because I am as anxious and as deeply interested that you shall not be encumbered as you can be yourself.
Página vi - The pageant ended. On the 5th of March, the judges, without even exchanging their silken robes for courtiers' gowns, paid their salutations to the president, in the executive palace. Doubtlessly the president received them as graciously as Charles the First did the judges who had at his instance subverted the statutes of English liberty. On the 6th of March, the supreme court dismissed the negro suitor...
Página xii - When you were about leaving Atlanta for the Atlantic coast, I was anxious, if not fearful ; but feeling that you were the better judge; and remembering that "nothing risked, nothing gained," I did not interfere. Now, the undertaking being a success, the honor is all yours ; for I believe none of us went further than to acquiesce.
Página xiii - This inaugural strikes me in its grand simplicity and directness as being for all time the historical keynote of this war; in it a people seemed to speak in the sublimely simple utterance of ruder times.
Página xii - ... adjutant-general; and on February 23 he was attached to the staff of the general-in-chief. The new acquisition to the company at headquarters soon became exceedingly popular. He had inherited many of the genial traits of his father, and entered heartily into all the social pastimes at headquarters. He was always ready to perform his share of hard work, and never expected to be treated differently from any other officer on account of his being the son of the Chief Executive of the nation.
Página xiii - Even in his freest moments one always felt the presence of a will and an intellectual power which maintained the ascendancy of the president." In his relations to his cabinet "it was always plain that he was the master and they were the subordinates. They constantly had to yield to his will, and if he ever yielded to them it was because they convinced him that the course they advised was judicious and appropriate.

Acerca del autor (2006)

Doris Kearns Goodwin was born in Brooklyn, New York on January 4, 1943. She received a bachelor of arts degree from Colby College in 1964 and a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University in 1968. She taught at Harvard University and worked as an assistant to President Lyndon Johnson during his last year in the White House. She has written numerous books including The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, Wait Till Next Year, and The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism, and Leadership: In Turbulent Times. She has received numerous awards including Pulitzer Prize in history, the Harold Washington Literary Award, the Ambassador Book Award for No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II, and the Lincoln Prize and the Book Prize for American History for Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.

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