Abe Lincoln

By Chris

No Harry Potter for me . . . Teresa picked up "Team of Rivals" by Doris Kerns Goodwin (if you have not read her "No Ordinary Time" Pulitzer winner on Rosevelt, get it) for me a few weeks ago, and I'm slowly getting through the 800 pages of the Abe Lincoln biography in my limited spare time. Sis in law Katy and Teresa look at me like I'm crazy enjoying the story lines of Lincoln, from a political perspective. I've only got 100 pages to go, and it's been good, and getting better. It's fascinating how he picked his most intense political rivals for the Republican nomination for president to serve in his cabinet, and how that worked out for him. He bucked the traditional wisdom in so many ways, that it makes you re-think common leadership maxims. The book also is chilling in the reminders about the incredible magnitude of lives lost in the Civil War. Literally tens of thousands at a time in battles, and many more thousands injured . . . limbs blown off etc. The dirty politics and journalism of that era make today look "civil", too. I'm just getting to the run-up to the 1864 election, and even though I obviously know the outcome, Goodwin's making it interesting. I heard Goodwin spent over a decade "living with Lincoln" through research to birth the book. It shows.