Shelf Life

For Christmas I was given the book Team of Rivals by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. Being a history buff and having always been a fan of Abraham Lincoln I looked forward to delving into this book that was really a complex biography of five men who found their lives intertwined through the unfolding of the greatest crisis in American history, the Civil War. The book is not an easy read as the author takes you into the thinking and emotions of five men faced with some of the most difficult political and personal decisions that could be asked of anyone.
The five men whose lives you enter in the book are Lincoln, Seward Chase, Bates and Cameron. This is Lincoln and his wartime cabinet. All of them brought special gifts to offer, all them brought conflicting ambitions, and all of them were on the same team. It was only through the almost unworldly genius of Abraham Lincoln that the cabinet could function as a type of dysfunctional family of sorts. The book offers in-depth detail and is voluminous at about 900 pages. So if you want to take an historical ride through the Washington D.C. of the Civil War and involve yourself in the complexity of politics and personalities this is a grand read. I loved it and plan to read it again over the summer, just to pick up what I missed the first time through.

By Mr. Rupp