"Team of Rivals"

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (Doris Kearns Goodwin)

I'm not really sure what I expected from this book; The first part of it promises to be nothing less than quintuple biography, covering Lincoln and then his three closest advisors (the "Team of Rivals") in the run-up to the 1860 election and through Lincoln's assassination at the end of the civil war.What I got instead was a mess. The author inexplicably has decided to include reams of pointless details, so the book develops an identity crisis. What is this book about? Is it a Lincoln & family biography and history? Then why do we spend page after page on the personal lives of his cabinent members? Is it a history of Lincoln and the federal government's handling of the Civil War? Then why do we spend page after page on Mary Lincoln going camping and shopping? Is it an examination of Lincoln's governing style and how that effected the war and the aftermath? Then why do we spend page after page on Kate Chase and her husband? The ultimate problem is that the book has no message, no thrust, nothing driving the narritive forward, and any time it begins to pick up momentum, the author will jump away from the military developments to Mary Lincoln's camping trips or jump away from Lincoln's navigating of the rocky political waters to Kate Chase's marrige. There's a good book in here, but it has at least 250 needless pages inserted into it. Cut out the parts of Lincoln's personal life that don't effect his governing of the country (the vast majority), cut out the personal lives of his cabinent members, and you have a very interesting examination of Lincoln's political and military philosophies. Leave it all in, and you have this book, which I can't recommend.

Grade: D+