Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln is a book by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin

Doris Kearns Goodwin

Doris Kearns Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American biographer and historian, and an oft-seen political commentator. She is the author of biographies of several U.S...

published in 2005. The book is a biographical portrait of U.S. President

President of the United States

The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

and some of the men who served with him in his Cabinet

United States Cabinet

The Cabinet of the United States is composed of the most senior appointed officers of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States, which are generally the heads of the federal executive departments...

from 1861 to 1865. Three of his Cabinet members had previously run against Lincoln in the 1860 election

United States presidential election, 1860

The United States presidential election of 1860 was a quadrennial election, held on November 6, 1860, for the office of President of the United States and the immediate impetus for the outbreak of the American Civil War. The nation had been divided throughout the 1850s on questions surrounding the...

: Attorney General

United States Attorney General

The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...

Edward Bates

Edward Bates was a U.S. lawyer and statesman. He served as United States Attorney General under Abraham Lincoln from 1861 to 1864...

, Secretary of the Treasury

United States Secretary of the Treasury

The Secretary of the Treasury of the United States is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, which is concerned with financial and monetary matters, and, until 2003, also with some issues of national security and defense. This position in the Federal Government of the United...

Salmon P. Chase

Salmon Portland Chase was an American politician and jurist who served as U.S. Senator from Ohio and the 23rd Governor of Ohio; as U.S. Treasury Secretary under President Abraham Lincoln; and as the sixth Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.Chase was one of the most prominent members...

and Secretary of State

United States Secretary of State

The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...

William H. Seward

William Henry Seward, Sr. was the 12th Governor of New York, United States Senator and the United States Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson...

. The book focuses on Lincoln's mostly successful attempts to reconcile conflicting personalities and political factions on the path to abolition

Abolitionism

Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...

and victory in the US Civil War.

Comparisons to the Obama administration

A comparison has been made between Lincoln's cabinet selections, as depicted in Goodwin's book, and the way President Barack Obama

Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

formed his cabinet. Goodwin has also discussed the similarities of the two presidents' cabinet selections. Obama has nominated three other candidates for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination

Democratic Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2008

The 2008 Democratic presidential primaries were the selection process by which voters of the Democratic Party chose its nominee for President of the United States in the 2008 U.S. presidential election...

- Vice President

Vice President of the United States

The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...

Joe Biden

Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. is the 47th and current Vice President of the United States, serving under President Barack Obama...

, Secretary of State

United States Secretary of State

Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Agriculture

United States Secretary of Agriculture

The United States Secretary of Agriculture is the head of the United States Department of Agriculture. The current secretary is Tom Vilsack, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on 20 January 2009. The position carries similar responsibilities to those of agriculture ministers in other...

Tom Vilsack

Thomas James "Tom" Vilsack is an American politician, a member of the Democratic Party, and presently the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. He served as the 40th Governor of the state of Iowa. He was first elected in 1998 and re-elected to a second four-year term in 2002...

- to serve in his cabinet. He also appointed conservative Judd Gregg

Judd Gregg

Judd Alan Gregg is a former Governor of New Hampshire and former United States Senator from New Hampshire, who served as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. He is a member of the Republican Party and was a businessman and attorney in Nashua before entering politics...

as Secretary of Commerce, but Gregg quit over differences related to the census and the stimulus package. The nomination of a fourth candidate for the Democratic nomination, Bill Richardson for Commerce Secretary

United States Secretary of Commerce

The United States Secretary of Commerce is the head of the United States Department of Commerce concerned with business and industry; the Department states its mission to be "to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce"...

, was withdrawn on January 4, 2009.

Obama has stated that Team of Rivals is one of the books essential for the Oval Office

Oval Office

The Oval Office, located in the West Wing of the White House, is the official office of the President of the United States.The room features three large south-facing windows behind the president's desk, and a fireplace at the north end...

Film adaptation

While consulting on a Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg

Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...

project in 1999, Goodwin told Spielberg she was planning to write Team of Rivals, and Spielberg immediately told her he wanted the film rights. DreamWorks finalized the deal in 2001 and the film has been in pre-production since. Daniel Day-Lewis

Daniel Day-Lewis

Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is an English actor with both British and Irish citizenship. His portrayals of Christy Brown in My Left Foot and Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood won Academy and BAFTA Awards for Best Actor, and Screen Actors Guild as well as Golden Globe Awards for the latter...

has agreed to play Abraham Lincoln after Liam Neeson

Liam Neeson

Liam John Neeson, OBE is an Irish actor who has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and three Golden Globe Awards.He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Peyton Westlake in Darkman, Jean Valjean in Les...

withdrew from the project in 2010 after being attached from the start; Tony Kushner

Tony Kushner

Anthony Robert "Tony" Kushner is an American playwright and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1993 for his play, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, and co-authored with Eric Roth the screenplay for the 2005 film, Munich.-Life and career:Kushner was born...

has written the screenplay.

External links

'Team of Rivals': Friends of Abe, New York Times review of Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
Who's the Boss?, Washington Post review of Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
'Team of Rivals': Lincoln's Political Prowess, NPR story on Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, HistoryNet.com review of Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

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