War for the Homeland

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Simon & Schuster, 944 pp., $35)

WHAT an irony that just as George W. Bush’s presidency and reputation reach their low point, liberal historian Doris Kearns Goodwin comes riding to his rescue. By far her best book, Team of Rivals is Goodwin’s account of how President Abraham Lincoln managed to turn a cabinet full of bitter former foes into his supporters’ club and an indispensable instrument of victory in the Civil War. But the real theme is greatness under trial, and how an underestimated man, the object of scorn and hate to millions, did a job no one else in the country could, and led it through a crisis unlike any other in its history. The book thus sheds an unexpectedly penetrating light on Bush, who ends up resembling Lincoln more than any president has in our lifetime.

About the Author

Arthur Herman

Arthur Herman is a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II.

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Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Simon & Schuster, 944 pp., $35)

WHAT an irony that just as George W. Bush’s presidency and reputation reach their low point, liberal historian Doris Kearns Goodwin comes riding to his rescue. By far her best book, Team of Rivals is Goodwin’s account of how President Abraham Lincoln managed to turn a cabinet full of bitter former foes into his supporters’ club and an indispensable instrument of victory in the Civil War. But the real theme is greatness under trial, and how an underestimated man, the object of scorn and hate to millions, did a job no one else in the country could, and led it through a crisis unlike any other in its history. The book thus sheds an unexpectedly penetrating light on Bush, who ends up resembling Lincoln more than any president has in our lifetime.

About the Author

Arthur Herman

Arthur Herman is a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II.