Team of Rivals
by Doris Kearns Goodwin · first published 2003
38% recommend62% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Richly detailed narrative of Lincoln's presidency and his cabinet of rival politicians, praised as a remarkable portrait of a man and an engaging, accessible history for general readers.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln is a 2005 book by Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, published by Simon & Schuster. The book is a biographical portrait of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and some of the men who served with him in his cabinet from 1861 to 1865. Three of his Cabinet members had previously run against Lincoln in the 1860 election: Attorney General Edward Bates, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase and Secretary of State William H. Seward. The book focuses on Lincoln's mostly successful attempts to reconcile conflicting pers
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• The Revolt of the Public: No book has done a better job of describing the current moment in history • Masters of Doom: Reminded me what it means to care about work and have fun doing it • Team of Rivals: A remarkable work of history and portrait of a man • The Undercover Economist • Fooled by Randomness • The Prize
on “Ask HN: Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2019?” ↗Team of Rivals - Doris Kearns Goodwin. Lincoln's cabinet was filled with representatives of the different wings of northern and border state politics, all of whom became key figures in the fight against the CSA. Very…
on “Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?” ↗…- Ian Kershaw - Really great biography into the rise and fall of Hitler and the third Reich. It’s horrifying for all the reasons you know, but also with how much is rhyming with the world right now. Team of Rivals: The political genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin - Great biography into Lincoln and his cabinet. He was truly a unique president who was able to convert people who hated him into his biggest…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?” ↗…Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America - I read this a few years after Hurricane Katrina. It provides some historical context to the problems of Katrina, especially the levee system Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - This is the current book to read on Lincoln The Island at the Center of the World - If you're interested in NYC history this is one of the books to read. American…
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite history books?” ↗1. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin 2.Too Big to Fail: Inside the Battle to Save Wall by Andrew Ross Sorkin
on “What is the best book you read this year? (optional: why?)” ↗You mean, entertaining and accurate? Like something that can keep someone's attention, by writing in easy to understand vernacular? Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin? Sapiens, Yuval Harari?
on “The Rise of Post-Literate History” ↗Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. Doris Kearns Goodwin.
on “Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2014?” ↗…more and more about a single period, a single event, and never learn it all. Every now and again I'll plunge into an area of interest, either through a maze of Wikipedia articles or a really good book (Team of Rivals; Churchill's memoirs of WWII; Paris 1919; etc.), but overall I prefer those works that challenge me to change my intellectual and artistic perspective (Age of Insight, about Vienna, is good for that).
on “The Griffin Warrior Tomb Upends What We Know About the Roots of Mycenae” ↗>"Lincoln's War Cabinet by Hendrick Burton - learn to surround yourself with ideas you don't necessarily agree with and be influenced by the most unlikely minds" "Team of Rivals" by Doris Kearns Goodwin explores the same topic, specifically how Lincoln made up his cabinet from talented rivals. Apparently Obama referred to this book (reference http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/05/obama-propos...)…
on “Ask HN: What are some good biographies to read?” ↗…sources]: http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/citex.html Now, look, Doris Kearns Goodwin got nailed plagarizing, too. She did her penance, and now she's back on TV and everything after putting out Team of Rivals, which was seminal. Anderson will have to do something similar. What's striking is that if you make it to the top of the profession, you can get away with this. If you're 28 and toiling to work your…
on “Chris Anderson's Free Contains Apparent Plagiarism” ↗> Nor is the “team of rivals” concept an innovation of the early 1860s, though Goodwin assures us it is. What an odd critique: Lincoln did this great thing, but he didn't invent it, so who cares? Beyond that being an odd critique,…
on “Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?” ↗…period -- a big contrast to the South. (The cultural divergence caused by different economic systems was arguably the main cause of the Civil War.) I recently finished reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team of Rivals, and was struck by a passage describing the River and Harbor Convention, said to have been the largest convention ever gathered in the US prior to the Civil War. The convention attracted 5,000 delegates…
on “Abraham Lincoln, America’s First Tech-Lawyer” ↗…other than I found some books in a second hand store. - "1776", by David McCullough - a combination of American Revolution history with telling of leadership in times when defeat seems inevitable. - "Team of Rivals", by Doris Kearns Goodwin - just started, reading about the pre-Civil War politics.
on “Ask HN: What are you reading these days?” ↗…former. [1] my hypothesis going in was that longue durée helps with having "story arcs" that, as they treat generalities, are not beholden to having any particular facts lining up with them, although Team of Rivals looks like it may be a counterexample? [2] then again, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42094214 on 'interpretation', for the relative ease of trimming down non-story-shaped material to something…
on “The Rise of Post-Literate History” ↗Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
on “Ask HN: What are you reading?” ↗