hwaforward.blogg.se - Team of rivals goodwin

Due to his brief track record in politics, Lincoln was the most unlikely choice as a presidential candidate.

Lincoln’s many hardships as a child shaped his ambitions and strengthened his resolve to succeed as an adult.

Here are 3 lessons I learned from this historical biography by Doris Kearns Goodwin, a book Bill Gates has called “ one of his all-time favorites“: After becoming president, however, Lincoln managed to bring these disgruntled opponents together to create the most unusual cabinet in American history. Lincoln quickly built momentum while his rivals rested on their laurels, thinking him to be no threat. These men all became rivals in the 1860 race for the presidency. Among the party’s high-profile members were the outspoken statesman Salmon Chase, New York Senator William Henry Seward, and prominent St.

In the 1840s, after Lincoln’s party, the Whigs, split over the slavery issue, he joined the Republican party. However, these experiences only strengthened Lincoln’s resolve and ambitions. At a young age, he endured the loss of family members and suffered a strained relationship with his father. Have you ever gone through a rough patch in your life and later realized the experience prepared you for some future success?įew people knew more about the benefit of hardships than Abraham Lincoln. Barack Obama (who rightly calls it "wonderful") famously used it as a manual in picking his own cabinet he may now find it also a source of comfort, showing that even Lincoln sometimes chose the wrong guy.Listen to the audio of this summary with a free reading.fm account*: What makes Team of Rivals such a rich experience is that it's a team of books, combining an absorbing psychological study, a group biography of the four rivals and their families, a history of the civil war as viewed from the White House, and a vivid, West Wing-like portrayal of two presidential campaigns and Washington infighting. This Pulitzer prize-winning life does ample justice to the "moral power" the novelist admired, but also reflects the peerlessly eloquent orator the stoical head of a family afflicted by death and depression and, above all, the shrewd manager of men who riskily gave cabinet posts to the better-known trio he beat to the 1860 Republican nomination - William Seward, Salmon Chase and Edward Bates. T olstoy called Lincoln "so great he overshadows all other national heroes".