Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Goodwin, Doris Kearns - 10/25/2005

Simon & Schuster, 10/25/2005. Hardcover. Very Good. 6x2x9. Signed. Inscribed by author, Doris Kearns Goodwin. Hardcover. Good binding and cover. Shelf wear. Spots to bottom page end. xix, 916 pages, [32] pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm. Clean, unmarked pages. <br> Winner of the Lincoln Prize Acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin illuminates Lincoln's political genius in this highly original work, as the one-term congressman and prairie lawyer rises from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals of national reputation to become president. On May 18, 1860, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Abraham Lincoln waited in their hometowns for the results from the Republican National Convention in Chicago. When Lincoln emerged as the victor, his rivals were dismayed and angry. Throughout the turbulent 1850s, each had energetically sought the presidency as the conflict over slavery was leading inexorably to secession and civil war. That Lincoln succeeded, Goodwin demonstrates, was the result of a character that had been forged by experiences that raised him above his more privileged and accomplished rivals. He won because he possessed an extraordinary ability to put himself in the place of other men, to experience what they were feeling, to understand their motives and desires.