Friday November 21, 2008
Biographies & Memoirs: Historical
Displayed below are the top selling items for today, Friday November 21, 2008 along with the review customers have voted "most useful".
To find top selling items in for a specific category, use the menu on the left or click here to see all categories.
- Warlord : A Life of Winston Churchill at War, 1874-1945 by Carlo D'este
- Traitor to His Class : The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by H.W. Brands
- No Ordinary Time : Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt by Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Team of Rivals : The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
- American Lion : Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham
- Tried by War : Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief by James M. McPherson
- The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
- Team of Rivals : The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
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Warlord
A Life of Winston Churchill at War, 1874-1945
by Carlo D'este
(based on 2 customer reviews)
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(Hardcover)
Author: Carlo D'este
Publisher: Harper
Price: $26.37
You save: $13.58 (34%) off the list price!
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Most useful review as voted by customers:
6 out of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 11/16/08
The English Warrior
Martin Gilbert and William Manchester have written muti-volume biographies of the long and fascinating life of Winston Churchill. They cover his fighting life from India and South Africa to the World Wars, his political life from party-switching to Prime Minister, and his personal life from his successful marriage to his career as a painter and writer. Mr. D'este has a narrow focus of exploring his military life through a half century of war, first as a participant and then as a decision maker. This book is a long (over 800 pages) but a nice introduction to his life of Winston Churchill. It picks its stories well (for Churchill had lots of stories) and tells them well. However for the reader who is familiar with the outline of Churchill's career, this book will be a review.
Click here to see more reviews for: Warlord
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Traitor to His Class
The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
by H.W. Brands (based on 3 customer reviews)
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(Hardcover)
Author: H.W. Brands
Publisher: Doubleday
Price: $21.00
You save: $14.00 (40%) off the list price!
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Most useful review as voted by customers:
22 out of 28 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 11/10/08
Thorough scholarship and an impressive eye for story.
After reading H.W. Brands 800 page biography Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life And Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, I know a great deal more about FDR than I do about any member of my family, and I love my family.
Brands renders elegant the full orbit of Roosevelt's life, replete with stirring descriptions of the constellation of out-sized bodies and satellite characters who exerted their cosmic pull upon Roosevelt's political revolution.
He had help. Victorian Age America conspired for Roosevelt's benefit, and Brands' narrative sketches a turn of the century political landscape where America and the world are organized to showcase the economic, military, and moral dignity of the governing class: Episcopalians living along the Eastern Seaboard. In this time, God and Government were in the able stewardship of Republican WASPs. These upright elites had routed the South during the Civil War and spent the next few generations lording it over the nation, and from Brands portrayal, they sound not terribly unlike the World War II generation, combining "nearly all the the business interests of the country and added sufficient numbers of urban workers and mid-western farmers to lock up the White House and Congress." The Democrats, on the other hand, were a mixed stew of immigrants, leftovers, rubes, and hayseeds, "with its shotgun multiple marriage of country and city, of southern white supremacist and northern ethnics, of Bible-thumping conservatives and agnostic liberals."
The Roosevelt's set comprised the small group of good Republican Episcopalians who really ran the world. They had names like Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, Ellery Sedgwick, Breckinridge Long, and Endicott Peabody- an appellation that can only give itself to someone very white, or someone very, very black, such a name does not admit of temperate hues or Jews. This East Coast elite ministered to the lower classes--including Catholics-- while at the same time reminding them of their place, a dual task requiring years of preparation. To this end, Groton boarding school and the Ivy Leagues produced civic minded Anglophile federal administrators, deputies, assistants, associates, and secretaries. For reasons of constitutional fidelity, Congressmen were culled proportionally from other states across the Union, but to be sure, their congressional offices were staffed with Yalies doing the heavy lifting. As a show of magnanimity, the good Republican sons and daughters of the Union allowed their Presidents to be harvested from Ohio: "Ohio grew Presidents like Iowa grew corn."
The Northern Democratic machines worked in the way of an syndicate, where party bosses doled out jobs to recently arrived immigrants, in exchange for votes. In the South, as Mark Twain penned, the Democrats political energies were spent waxing nostalgically of the era befo' the waw, or smarting over the dread realities durin' the waw, or lamenting their shrinking holdings aftah the waw. The Western Democrats were rogues, second sons and lawless pioneers. In the end, it was the well-mannered, landed Republican Episcopalians, those who sailed for leisure and said "bully," who made sure the people's business was done.
For Roosevelt, money flowed from both bloodlines. His father, James Roosevelt, was a chummy businessman in respectable society, a widower, and casual Democrat from an established Republican clan. His mother, Sara Delano, came from drug dealers. The drug was opium trafficked on the Oriental Sea, thousands of miles away, such that William Delano could consider himself a lucrative businessman in the independent pharmaceutical trade. William Delano approved of Sara's marriage to James Roosevelt, granting a special exemption from Delano's profound and good humored political prejudice, "I will not say that all Democrats are horse thieves," he declared in a moment magnanimity. "But it would seem that all horse thieves are Democrats." And from this political accident of birth, some would call it a defect, sprang Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a traitor to his class.
But for the occasional sickness, FDR matriculated breezily and with ruddy good humor through the cold showers, dawn revelry, and the Greek declensions of Groton; the social clubs and Crimson of Harvard; and landed on his wedding day to hear Uncle Teddy toast his union with all of the ego befitting the Rough Rider. Imagine Bill Clinton walking into your wedding, one wonders if the weak would faint from his charisma or from oxygen deprivation as the air drew from the room. "Theodore, who could never resist an audience, strode forward and hypnotized the guests in his usual fashion. Years later, Eleanor recalled the moment distinctly: 'Those closest to us did take time to wish us well, but the great majority of the guests were far more interested in the thought of being able to see and listen to the President; and in a very short time this young married couple were standing alone.' Eleanor of course said nothing, although she surely hoped that her new husband would speak up. But he was as smitten as the rest. 'I cannot remember that even Franklin seemed to mind.'"
As to the players, central casting delivered a team of talent, and Brands digs through a trove of diaries and notes to fill out the desires of the much put upon Eleanor Roosevelt, who cut her social activist teeth when Roosevelt sent her out to be his eyes and ears on the streets of New York; the loyal and canny Louise Howe; plucky, do-gooding Harry Hopkins, straight-talking Wendell Willkie, the much harassed and harassing Al Smith; Francis Townsend, the retired doctor who, and by the way, begat Social Security; Walter Lippman, a reporter second only to George Will in my estimation, in expressing with linguistic felicity, the wrong side of a great many issues; the frenetic populist Louisiana Governor Huey Long, a force of blustering nature closer to Hurricane Katrina than a mere mortal; and the terrifying phenomenon of Douglass MacArthur.
Brands recounts Roosevelt's awe of MacArthur, after the General handled a group of disgruntled veterans protesting on the White House Lawn:
"You said Huey was the second most dangerous person, didn't you?" he asked Roosevelt..."You heard it all right," he answered. "I meant it. Huey is only the second. The first is Doug MacArthur. You saw how he strutted down Pennsylvania Avenue. You saw that picture of him in the Times after the troops chased all those vets out with tear gas and burned their shelters. Did you ever see anyone more self-satisfied? There's a potential Mussolini for you. Right here at home. The head man in the Army. That's a perfect position if things get disorderly enough and good citizens work up enough anxiety." Roosevelt explained that he knew MacArthur from the World War. "You've never heard him talk, but I have. He has the most portentous style of anyone I know. He talks in a voice that might come from an oracle's cave. He never doubts and never argues or suggests; he makes pronouncements. What he thinks is final. Besides, he's intelligent, a brilliant soldier like his father before him...if all this talk comes to anything-- about government going to pieces and not being able to stop the spreading disorder-- Doug Macarthur is the man. In his way, he's as much a demagogue as Huey. He has as much ego, too. He thinks he's infallible-- if he's always right, all people need to do is to take orders. And if some don't like it, he'll take care of them in his own way."
Brands' Roosevelt grew from a self-possessed, hungry politician, making a name for himself as a Democrat whose Protestant prep school sensibilities bucked the vagaries of Tammany Hall machine politics-- Roosevelt's independent wealth purchased partial immunity from Tammany Hall's attractive structural electoral support---through to become Assistant Navy Secretary who used those Tammany skills to shunt shipbuilding jobs to his home state in earnest, far-sided preparation for a Gubernatorial run, into a crafty Washington pol who strung out Stalin for years before finally engaging in World War II, eventually relieving the pressure Stalin faced on the Eastern front of the war. One knows Brands' portrayal cuts a compelling form when even Joseph Stalin emerges as a sympathetic figure. Roosevelt's conception of the troika of world leaders (Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin) moved the President to cajole Stalin into having the Soviet Union "keep Hitler occupied and to kill Germans-- lots and lots of Germans. Every German who died on the easter front was one fewer the Americans and British would have to fight themselves, when their turn came."
In telling Roosevelt's story, Brands admirably blends the monumental, antiquarian, and critical aspects of the President's life.
The Monumental: Roosevelt took the United States off the gold standard by cleverly-placed press statements, bank holidays, and surreptitious legislative sleights of hand tantamount to a daring feat of prestidigitation. Imagine the American economy in the body of a juggler. The juggler uses both hands to keep three balls in the air, the true artist keeps balls in the air by using one hand, Roosevelt led the nation to dare performing this act without using hands at all, and the American Economy has been supported by air ever since, and such was the religious conversion of the American economy, with the dollar dancing, dipping and defying gravity by faith alone.
The Antiquarian: Roosevelt's romantic dalliances. It's always sad when the good aren't faithful.
The Critical: Roosevelt may have achieved too much political success after his first term. With a sweeping electoral mandate and congressional majority, he became resentful of the Supreme Court, over-reached and tried mightily to change the constitution of the court to suit his favor. In Brands' narrative, this failure to pack the Court begins the story of a manipulative President, one who had very little compunction uttering this campaign phrase: "I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent to any foreign wars." Then put those voters on boats storming Omaha Beach. The result leaves this reader to believe that it's possible the world would be a better place if Wendell Willkie had won in 1940. Willkie would have gotten us in the war but possibly without casually interning Japanese-American citizens for the bargain.
Brands has written sixteen books on American Themes, all, it seems, in tacit preparation for Roosevelt's story. The biography reads as if Brands sifted through the accumulated research of his lifetime to create a full picture of the man. Bravo
Click here to see more reviews for: Traitor to His Class
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No Ordinary Time
Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt
by Doris Kearns Goodwin
The Home Front in World War II (based on 124 customer reviews)
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(Paperback)
Author: Doris Kearns Goodwin
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Price: $12.89
You save: $6.06 (32%) off the list price!
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Most useful review as voted by customers:
90 out of 97 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 11/24/02
No ordinary award - the Pulitzer - is very fitting
This is one of the finest books I have ever read about America's involvement in World War II. Not only has Goodwin thoroughly researched her subject, but she knows how to tell it in an easily readable, "can't put it down" manner. Writing an informative, wonderfully illustrative book about the home front during mankind's biggest, deadliest war is a feat, but making readers feel as if they are actually living and experiencing that time is another accomplishment altogether. Goodwin does this in a book that will be read hundreds of years from now.Anyone who wishes to get the feel for what it was like during this tumultuous time should buy this book, read it, and then read it again.
Many people of FDR's inner circle are profiled and narrated, including Lucy Mercer, the woman FDR fell in love with and nearly divorced Eleanor over; Missy LeHand, FDR's personal assistant whom many referred to as his "real" wife; as well as Ikes, Morgenthau, Stimson and most importantly, Harry Hopkins.
Goodwin also debunks some myths about the FDR presidency, both good and bad. Some World War II "Did You Know" tidbits covered:
1. Nearly 105,000 refugees from Nazism reached the U.S., more than any other country. Palestine was second with 55,000. No one disputes that the number should have been much, much higher, but today's attitudes would lead people to believe that we turned everyone away. Footnote - during FDR's presidency, only 3 percent of the population was Jewish - but 15 percent of his appointments were Jewish. Our greatest wartime president was no Anti-Semite.
2. The journey of the St. Louis. The author gives adequate attention to one of the great tragedies of the war, and an enormous stain on FDR's legacy.
3. Goodwin thoroughly covers the internment of Japanese-Americans - another enormous stain on FDR's presidency. But what is often ignored is the overwhelming pressure on FDR from a tremendous number of people to confine anyone even remotely related to the Japanese. This should not have mattered to FDR, and tragically, it did. One can only wonder if this was part of FDR's dealmaking mentality to accomplish many of his goals to prepare for and wage war. Quite possibly, if he didn't go along with this tragic idea, he many not have received cooperation on many of his other initiatives. People also tend to forget that this was all out war following a tragic, unprovoked attack. Many of the same things are happening to people of Arab decent following the 9/11 attacks, and the Bush administration doesn't hesitate to throw the rule book or Constitution out the window with people of Arab decent, all in the name of fighting terrorism. Rooting out sympathizers and spies was a principle reason in confining the Japanese. This is not a justification for internment, merely part of the reason.
4. Eleanor played a big role in trying to convince Congress to pass legislation that allowed British children to come to the U.S. so they could be out of harm's way during the bombing of Britian. William Schulte of Indiana tried to get the provision expanded to include all European children under 16 - including German Jewish children. The provision never made it to the Senate floor for a vote.
Goodwin also covers FDR's reasoning and motives behind lend-lease, the brilliant idea to provide war matériel to the Allies when they couldn't afford it. Even Stalin said that lend-lease was one of the biggest factors in winning the war.
In short, this is one of the most informative and educational books written yet about what the home front was like, and the thinking and wisdom that went into many of the decisions about the war. It also offers many wonderful insights into FDR and Eleanor, and their complex relationship that was really more of a partnership.
This brilliant tome belongs on any World War II bookshelf. I'd give it six stars if I could.
Click here to see more reviews for: No Ordinary Time
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Team of Rivals
by Doris Kearns Goodwin (based on 374 customer reviews)
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(Hardcover)
Edition: 1st
Author: Doris Kearns Goodwin
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Price: $21.00
You save: $14.00 (40%) off the list price!
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Most useful review as voted by customers:
216 out of 230 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 12/2/05
The Lincoln Cabinet: A Character Study
Ms. Goodwin has created a gem of a masterpiece with her most recent book on Lincoln. In the millions of pages already written on the subject, there are no books that I know of that do in essence, a character study on Lincoln and his cabinet members. The 754 page text is one of the best ever written regarding the true and underlying nature of those men who served with Lincoln in his cabinet.
While events and persons such as Antietam, Jefferson Davis, Fort Sumter, Maryland's secession attempt and many other events receive short shrift from Ms. Goodwin, this treatment is as it should be for her book concentrates on the personality and character of Lincoln and his cabinet.
While Lincoln never committed himself during the convention to any of his rivals in terms of cabinet positions, to gain votes for his eventual nomination; he voluntarily chose most of his cabinet from men who were his greatest rivals for the Presidency. He did this with clear and present knowledge that they were the best men for the jobs and the country at the time. The incredibly impressive exposition of the character of these men and especially that of Abraham Lincoln and his political and personal acumen in holding them together is given new life in this book.
Through careful reading and perusal of literally thousands of personal letters from cabinet members and from President Lincoln, Goodwin is able to put together a wonderfully clear and unique picture of the character of these men. In addition, she is able to paint a picture of each in words, and point out how their true character differed often from the public perception that abounded.
Ms. Goodwin should be noted for her fine and excruciating work in creating this book which will remain as a must read classic for Lincoln scholars of the present and the future. All of us who track the Lincoln Presidency, 140 years after its termination are grateful for her assiduous work in creating this wonderful book.
Click here to see more reviews for: Team of Rivals
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Team of Rivals
The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
by Doris Kearns Goodwin (based on 374 customer reviews)
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(Paperback)
Author: Doris Kearns Goodwin
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Price: $11.55
You save: $9.45 (45%) off the list price!
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Most useful review as voted by customers:
216 out of 230 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 12/1/05
The Lincoln Cabinet: A Character Study
Ms. Goodwin has created a gem of a masterpiece with her most recent book on Lincoln. In the millions of pages already written on the subject, there are no books that I know of that do in essence, a character study on Lincoln and his cabinet members. The 754 page text is one of the best ever written regarding the true and underlying nature of those men who served with Lincoln in his cabinet.
While events and persons such as Antietam, Jefferson Davis, Fort Sumter, Maryland's secession attempt and many other events receive short shrift from Ms. Goodwin, this treatment is as it should be for her book concentrates on the personality and character of Lincoln and his cabinet.
While Lincoln never committed himself during the convention to any of his rivals in terms of cabinet positions, to gain votes for his eventual nomination; he voluntarily chose most of his cabinet from men who were his greatest rivals for the Presidency. He did this with clear and present knowledge that they were the best men for the jobs and the country at the time. The incredibly impressive exposition of the character of these men and especially that of Abraham Lincoln and his political and personal acumen in holding them together is given new life in this book.
Through careful reading and perusal of literally thousands of personal letters from cabinet members and from President Lincoln, Goodwin is able to put together a wonderfully clear and unique picture of the character of these men. In addition, she is able to paint a picture of each in words, and point out how their true character differed often from the public perception that abounded.
Ms. Goodwin should be noted for her fine and excruciating work in creating this book which will remain as a must read classic for Lincoln scholars of the present and the future. All of us who track the Lincoln Presidency, 140 years after its termination are grateful for her assiduous work in creating this wonderful book.
Click here to see more reviews for: Team of Rivals
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Man's Search for Meaning
by Viktor E. Frankl (based on 78 customer reviews)
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(Mass Market Paperback)
Edition: 1
Author: Viktor E. Frankl
Publisher: Beacon Press
Price: $6.99
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Most useful review as voted by customers:
83 out of 86 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 3/5/07
A powerful book that can reshape how you think
Dr. Frankl's book is divided into two parts. In the first part, he eloquently describes how he survived a Nazi concentration camp during World War Two. He took this terrible "opportunity" to learn how people survive crises and deprivation and continuously life-threatening horror. This section will be valuable to anyone, and especially to those of us who have survived tragedy and trauma of any kind (in other words, just about anyone again). The bottom line beyond survival is not about learning to collaborate or being physically strong or not "rocking the boat," although those can be factors; the main road to survival a horror is through holding onto core beliefs and values, and an image of yourself in a better future, toward which you strive.
The second part of the book describes the philosophy of life and the existential theory of psychology that Dr. Frankl derived from his experiences. I am a practicing clinical psychologist and, while Dr. Frankl probably would not label my brand of psychotherapy as his "logotherapy," I credit this book as providing me with a framework that had been missing in my work. Through my education, I learned many techniques that were useful to me, and I read about many theories of psychology and psychotherapy that were interesting, but I ended up with a set of tools but no toolbox to put them in. "Man's Search for Meaning" gave me the toolbox, or the framework that tied everything else together. Read it; it will challenge you and probably change you.
Click here to see more reviews for: Man's Search for Meaning
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American Lion
Andrew Jackson in the White House
by Jon Meacham (based on 6 customer reviews)
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(Hardcover)
Author: Jon Meacham
Publisher: Random House
Price: $18.00
You save: $12.00 (40%) off the list price!
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Most useful review as voted by customers:
51 out of 56 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 11/11/08
My Husband was right again!
I started this book with trepidation as I am not a big nonfiction reader, I love thrillers and mysteries, but my husband said I had to read this new Andrew Jackson book that he had some how wrangled an advance copy. I have to grudgingly admit that he was right, this book was as much a page turner as the recent Patterson. Even more so because this stuff actually happened! Also my enjoyment of the book was probably enhanced given the current political season. One of the things that struck me was how thier are so many who complain today about the rancor in politics, and what happened to bipartisanship? After reading this book I realize political discourse was a lot more wild in the past, much more wild than anything we could imagine today. There was a time when it was not uncommon for two political rivals to settle their differences with a duel.
This is the story of the life and times of the seventh President of the United States, Andrew Jackson. I have to admit I did not know much about the man prior to reading the book, but his life makes for a fascinating read. His life was an adventure full of drama. A real man of the people I found myself identifying with him in spite of his serious faults. This book made me see how his individualist outlook is still with us today and traces back in part to Jackson. Pull a twenty dollar bill out of your pocket and this is the man and his times "American Lion" is about. Hopefully, young people will read this book and get a better idea about the roots of our great country. So I have to give my husband credit for recommending my two favorite reads of 2008 Across the High Lonesomeand "American Lion."
Click here to see more reviews for: American Lion
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Tried by War
Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief
by James M. McPherson (based on 22 customer reviews)
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(Hardcover)
Author: James M. McPherson
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Price: $21.00
You save: $14.00 (40%) off the list price!
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Most useful review as voted by customers:
40 out of 42 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 10/11/08
A perceptive and persuasive volume by a superior Civil War historian
Many scholars have described Abraham Lincoln's legacy, but surprisingly few have chronicled his role as Commander-in-Chief. Arguably our premier Civil War historian, James McPherson, whose Battle Cry of Freedom won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998, brilliantly remedies this neglect.
"In his conception of military strategy," writes McPherson, "Lincoln was Clausewitzian. The Prussian theorist of war had written that 'the destruction of the enemy's military force is the leading principle of war,' and it "is principally effected only by means of the engagement' that is, by 'hard, tough fighting.'"
Lincoln was often frustrated by his generals' lethargy, especially by George McClellan, a pompous prima donna with a messianic complex who preened himself as being "The Young Napoleon." Strutting about like a bantam rooster, McClellan boasted that he, and he alone, was destined to save the Union. True, by means of seemingly endless formation drills, he whipped the Union army into a formidable fighting force, but then stubbornly refused to budge against the enemy. Whining and complaining, inaccurately, that the Confederate forces arrayed against him were at least twice the size of his Army of the Potomac, he postponed, time and again, an offensive campaign, to which cowardly inactivity Lincoln tartly retorted, "If you don't plan to use the army, may I borrow it for a while?"
Only in the last year of the war did Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, George Henry Thomas, and Philip Henry Sheridan grasp Lincoln's insight that the Union's concentration in time (simultaneous coordinated attacks) trumped the Confederate superiority in space (by using interior lines).
Tried by War is a fascinating narrative not only of Lincoln's prescient military leadership but also a bird's-eye view of the major military encounters of the Civil War. McPherson has written a perceptive and persuasive volume.
About the author: James M. McPherson is the George Henry Davis `86 Professor of History Emeritus at Princeton University, where he taught for three decades. He is the bestselling author of numerous books on the Civil War, including Battle Cry of Freedom (which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998), For Cause and Comrades, which won the prestigious Lincoln Prize, and Crossroads of Freedom. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
Click here to see more reviews for: Tried by War
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The Wordy Shipmates
by Sarah Vowell (based on 56 customer reviews)
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(Hardcover)
Author: Sarah Vowell
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Price: $15.57
You save: $10.38 (40%) off the list price!
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Most useful review as voted by customers:
31 out of 32 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 10/3/08
A little-- well-- wordy...
I love Sarah Vowell's books. She is an absolute master at examining a historical subject, relating it to the world we live in, and inserting her personal foibles to it, all in a narrative that moves so smoothly and quickly that you're sometimes surprised that you've read the whole book at a sitting. That's what she attempts to do here, but she doesn't quite pull it off this time.
Don't misunderstand me; this isn't at all a bad book. In fact, it's fascinating. It is jam-packed with fascinating information about the Massachusetts Puritans and the religious, social, and historical context of their settlement. Vowell weaves comments about her family background, education, travels, and hopes and fears into the narrative, just as she usually does.
When Vowell's writing works best, it's driven by her quirkiness and her ability to veer off on what seems to be a tangent, then bring everything together in the end. She does that here, but just not as well as in her other books. Perhaps the subject just isn't as susceptible to the Vowell treatment as the subjects of her other books.
I actually enjoyed this book, and I recommend it highly. However, it's just not as good as her other books made me expect it to be. Well worth reading, though.
Click here to see more reviews for: The Wordy Shipmates
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Team of Rivals
The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
by Doris Kearns Goodwin (based on 374 customer reviews)
-
(Kindle Edition)
Author: Doris Kearns Goodwin
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Price: $9.99
You save: $3.00 (23%) off the list price!
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Most useful review as voted by customers:
216 out of 230 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 12/1/05
The Lincoln Cabinet: A Character Study
Ms. Goodwin has created a gem of a masterpiece with her most recent book on Lincoln. In the millions of pages already written on the subject, there are no books that I know of that do in essence, a character study on Lincoln and his cabinet members. The 754 page text is one of the best ever written regarding the true and underlying nature of those men who served with Lincoln in his cabinet.
While events and persons such as Antietam, Jefferson Davis, Fort Sumter, Maryland's secession attempt and many other events receive short shrift from Ms. Goodwin, this treatment is as it should be for her book concentrates on the personality and character of Lincoln and his cabinet.
While Lincoln never committed himself during the convention to any of his rivals in terms of cabinet positions, to gain votes for his eventual nomination; he voluntarily chose most of his cabinet from men who were his greatest rivals for the Presidency. He did this with clear and present knowledge that they were the best men for the jobs and the country at the time. The incredibly impressive exposition of the character of these men and especially that of Abraham Lincoln and his political and personal acumen in holding them together is given new life in this book.
Through careful reading and perusal of literally thousands of personal letters from cabinet members and from President Lincoln, Goodwin is able to put together a wonderfully clear and unique picture of the character of these men. In addition, she is able to paint a picture of each in words, and point out how their true character differed often from the public perception that abounded.
Ms. Goodwin should be noted for her fine and excruciating work in creating this book which will remain as a must read classic for Lincoln scholars of the present and the future. All of us who track the Lincoln Presidency, 140 years after its termination are grateful for her assiduous work in creating this wonderful book.
Click here to see more reviews for: Team of Rivals
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