Monday, January 16, 2006

The Bedside Table

Current Reading: Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals”The Political genius of Abraham Lincoln. This is not a book one has to slog through but one you read with the ease of a political thriller; history writing of the highest order.

From the book jacket: 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 victor, his rivals were dismayed and angry…(yet he) brought his disgruntled opponents together, to create the most unusual cabinet in history, and marshal their talents to the task of preserving the Union and winning the war.

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