If I had to say something bad about “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” by Doris Kearns Goodwin, it would be that it really hurts your toe when you drop the book. This 900+ page book (less if you don’t count the bibliography) is not for the casual Lincoln reader, but it is definitely worth your time if you want to learn about arguably our nation’s greatest president. If you’ve been following my re-education of American history, you’ll know that I’ve been reading a bunch of Revolutionary War and early America books over the past year or so. Well, I decided to skip to the Civil War out of excitement for the subject and promised myself to return to the early 1800′s sometime in the future.

Goodwin spends considerable time describing the supporting characters in the book, namely Lincoln’s cabinet, in order to show how the less-experienced Lincoln was able to leverage the skills of much more politically seasoned men. While this was my first book on Lincoln, I think her method here showed just how truly brilliant Lincoln was. He had very little experience as a politician, almost no formal education, was mocked relentlessly by his opponents for his backwoods history and awkward appearance, and likely suffered from depression. He overcame all those challenges through intelligence, compassion, empathy, determination, confidence, and honesty. People who once hated the man, grew to love Lincoln for his kindness and eventually respected him for his abilities.

Of all the historical figures I’ve ever read about, I don’t think there are many who seem as alive to me as Lincoln. For every page of the book I fought off the knowledge that this man who pulled out country through its darkest hour was sure to die in the final chapter. You can’t help but love Lincoln.

In his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln spoke to a crowd that had just sat through a two hour long speech. It seems hard to believe in our modern world of soundbytes and 5-minute news that politicians would regularly speak for hours and hours to crowds of thousands of people. When Lincoln took the stage, everyone likely expected another marathon oration from the President. They would have been shocked if he had spoken for an hour and so it is hard to imagine what everyone thought when Lincoln sat down after just a few minutes.

In his brief remarks, perhaps providing some of the most famous quotes in American history, Lincoln shared his feelings that had built up over his entire lifetime. The Civil War was a fight for many things, and to Lincoln, bringing an end to slavery was chief amongst them. At Gettysburg, he spoke so briefly and so clearly that there could be no ambiguity as to his intent: the United States of America would prove that a nation founded on the principle that “all men are created equal” could prevail. It would be many years before the civil rights movement of the 1960′s, but Lincoln’s passion and determination in leading the nation through the Civil War was inspirational and long ahead of its time.

I can hardly begin to summarize all the amazing stories in this book that make it worth the read, but I hope that if you are at all interested in Lincoln, you’ll take the time to pick up a book about him. His accomplishments and political strategies are as relevant today as they ever were. I’m told it can be “trendy” to quote and discuss Lincoln. Well, I can only hope that my attempts to do so are true to the man and not simply leveraged for talking points. With that said, I can’t wait to read more about him!