Team of Rivals

I have recently purchased team of Rivals. I have still to read it but would be interested in other readers' opinions.

The book was a phenom inside the Beltway, but it has made no headway AFAIK with Lincoln scholars. The author makes one major, unwarranted assumption: that Lincoln was free to choose whomever he wanted for his cabinet. More likely, he had no real choice but to pick his rivals among the leadership of the six-year-old Republican Party. He did succeed in winning their respect, however grudging. But it's a stretch to argue that he confidently planned to do so from the start.

Kerns has a credibility problem among scholars. Her extensive use of uncredited material has hurt her reputation.

I am rather surprised by comments suggesting that Doris Kearns Goodwin's book "made no headway" with Lincoln scholars and that "Kearns has a credibility problem among scholars." Reviews of her book in historical journals suggest just the opposite to be true.

Heather Cox Richardson, a leading authority on the Civil War and Reconstruction and a scholar I know to be particularly demanding in terms of evidence and accuracy, described Team of Rivals as a "terrific book" that is "the best rounded view of wartime Washington I have ever read. It is probably the most accurate as well." She concludes that "a first-rate book, Team of Rivals has proven Goodwin a first-rate historian of nineteenth-century America." (Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 27, no. 2, 2006)

Frederick Blue wrote in the Journal of American History (93, no. 2, 2006) that Goodwin's "four-way biography of Lincoln and his rivals for the 1860 presidential nomination is a superlative account of Lincoln's political genius. Masterfully bringing together the political, military, and social events of the war, Goodwin provides a truly engaging narrative." Blue does suggest that "Goodwin could have reduced the excessive length of her narrative considerably by eliminating unnecessary detail" (a criticism echoed by Richardson) but concludes "no one can question her meticulous research in both primary and secondary sources."

Lincoln scholar Matthew Vosmeier, writing in the Indiana Magazine of History (103, no. 1, 2007), concluded that Goodwin's "skillful use of the correspondence and journals of the people surrounding Lincoln - and her presentation of their thoughts, actions, and relationships with each other generally - add considerable depth to her interpretation of Lincoln and his colleagues." Vosmeier offered no serious criticisms of Goodwin's "insightful analysis."

A quick search did not turn up any reviews of Goodwin's book in the American Historical Review, but all of the reviews I found elsewhere were uniformly admiring. I'm left wondering where this reported criticism of Goodwin and her book is to be found.

I too recall the controversy over Kearns's credibility, but I can't give you a source. It was a while ago. Possibly those journals you quoted were written before questions were raised.

>5 barney67: What you are recalling presumably is the 2002 charges that Goodwin plagarized parts of her earlier biography, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys. I was living abroad at the time and hadn't heard of this controversy until I did a Google search today. Seems there was quite a brouhaha over her lifting text from footnoted sources without using quotation marks, which she blamed on poor notetaking. Reminds me of the accusations against Stephen Ambrose and Joseph Ellis. In any event, I haven't found any accusations of plagarism or other irregularies with regard to Team of Rivals, nor any serious criticism of the book's research and analysis.

Thanks to all for their opinions. I ask this question as a non- American who is developing an interest in American history.

Kearns's flaw does not lie in the book itself (which is fine) but in the highly problematic interpretation of it she gave in numerous appearances as a talking head on TV. The Team of Rivals meme she helped push resulted or helped result in Obama holding on to Bush people in key areas (Geithner, Gates), buying into the continuity of failure.

In the correct historical analogy, the one that Kearns didn't use, that would have meant Lincoln to draw on the personnel of the failed Buchanan presidency. The second analogy which Kearns did make was the co-opting of Clinton as secretary of state as creating a Team of Rivals.

A little bit of knowledge about the power of the secretary of state from Jefferson onwards would have helped to see that the secretary of state is little more than the VP for foreigners, a ceremonial post with little clout (compared to defense or the treasury. As an aside, that is also why this position has been allowed to be transferred into the hand of non-white males). A bit of knowledge about George Washington's and John Adams' presidencies might also have helped to show that a Team of Rivals doesn't really work ...

Of course, it's only an opinion that the Bush presidency was a failure.

The controversy was around 2 other books she wrote about the Kennedy's and the Roosevelt's and did not involve Team of Rivals. You can read about it in her bio on Wikipedia.

>8 jcbrunner: OK, let me see if I've got this straight. In addition to underwhelming Lincoln scholars, Goodwin and her book are responsible for crippling the Obama administration and subverting American foreign policy. Except she didn't really harm American foreign policy because Secretary Clinton is just a figurehead anyway.

Wow, I had no idea of the power Goodwin wielded through the "meme" she pushed with her book. Nor did I understand before, despite having spent nearly 30 years as an American diplomat with the US State Department, how completely insignificant the secretary of state is in the formulation of American foreign policy. Gosh, I wonder how we could have missed that...

I may have missed something. But Team of Rivals was out well before the O'bama election and in his own nomination he was referring to Team of Rivals since Bideene ran as his VP and then he nominated Clinton as Secretary of State.

I may have missed something. But Team of Rivals was out well before the O'bama election and in his own nomination he was referring to Team of Rivals since Bideene ran as his VP and then he nominated Clinton as Secretary of State.

>11 walbat:
Great sarcasm. :)

Team of Rivals, to give it its due, is the most commercially successful Lincoln book published in the last (I'm guessing) decade or so, and it received a prize from the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College. A bad book could not have achieved all that. This is also a much more serious and noteworthy Lincoln book than some that have succeeded it, like Mr. Lincoln's Boys, or Lincoln Tells a Joke. It's no exaggeration to talk of a Lincoln industry, and any book that manages to stand out from the crowd is probably well worth reading.

Goodwin is a historian of U.S. presidents who began her career working for President Lyndon Johnson. This may be one reason her book commanded so much attention in Washington, the news media, and the Obama presidential campaign: A lot of people who move in those circles have met Doris Kearns Goodwin, so they're more likely to talk up her book than one by, say, Eric Foner or Stephen Berry.

My criticism of the book is based on my own impression — I admit I never finished it — and on informal conversations with others who read it. I have also noticed its absence from academic surveys of "best" recent Lincoln scholarship. That doesn't mean ToR is a waste of time, but it does suggest that experts in Lincoln's era did not learn anything new from it.

I found the thesis unconvincing for the reasons already given. A recent Lincoln book that impressed me far more (and is much shorter) is House of Abraham, about Lincoln's complicated relations with his southern in-laws. (I bought it in the tiny bookshop in the Lincoln Memorial.)

I read Team of Rivals without reading much of the interpretations of others concerning the book. I felt that the book told a fascinating story of how Lincoln with one year of education was able to dominate politically and intellectually a group of men with greater experience and education. William H. Seward who began by thinking he would be the power in the administration became a genuine admirer of Lincoln. Salmon P. Chase who never doubted that his abilities were superior to Lincoln's was politically humbled in Lincoln's clash with a group of powerful Senators.
I felt that the author with her earlier problems in mind worked very hard to produce a well researched and scrupulously accurate book. IMO the book is an excellent portrayal of the workings of Lincoln's cabinet and a tribute to his genius.

> 14

it does suggest that experts in Lincoln's era did not learn anything new from it.

But was the book's intended audience "experts in Lincoln's era" or was it the general reading public? There are a great many excellent non-fiction books written for a general audience that would not increase the knowledge of an expert audience, but that doesn't mean they are bad or unsuccessful.

#16 good point. I think we'd find it difficult to learn anything new about Lincoln anyway, even the experts have probably covered it all.

>14 Muscogulus:, 15 Thanks for your assessments of Team of Rivals. I must confess my own high regard for the book. It's well-written, enlightening in its four-way biographical treatment of Lincoln, Seward, Chase, and Stanton, and quite entertaining. It's true that Goodwin has a higher "public intellectual" profile than Foner or many other good historians, and that may have fueled the publicity machine. But it's still a well-researched, substantive work.

It's also probably true that Lincoln scholars found little that was new, in terms of facts or interpretation, in Goodwin's book, but I agree with one of the academic reviewers that I cited earlier (Frederick Blue) that Goodwin "successfully brings new life and vitality to a familiar story." That, more than all the hype, probably accounts for the book's widespread popularity.

#11 - Like

I thought "Team" was an excellent book for describing the characters and conflicts in the Lincoln cabinet--no wonder the academics were jealous, Kearn's did what they should have done decades ago...

I thought that Gore Vidal told the same story better in his work of fiction on Lincoln

>20 ThomasCWilliams:

no wonder the academics were jealous, Kearn's (sic) did what they should have done decades ago...

I guess it's my turn to be sarcastic.

How wonderful that you were able to read every Lincoln book produced by "the academics" in "decades," in order to draw your ironclad conclusion that Goodwin's book accomplished things that none of those lazy eggheads managed to achieve. I guess you showed them.

Seriously, Team of Rivals is a good Lincoln book, but not a great one. Goodwin is a skilled writer and does well at weaving an absorbing portrait of Civil War Washington. As an analysis, it's not so great, and the thesis that gives the book its title is asserted, not proven. (IOW Goodwin assumes that Lincoln had a free hand in choosing his cabinet, whereas it's more likely he had no real choice but to include his rivals for party leadership. He did create a team out of necessity, but this was not because of some plan based on confidence in his own charisma.)

To say one more thing in Goodwin's defense, she is not known for "extensive" academic dishonesty, as was stated above. She plagiarized some of her book on the Kennedys, then tried to conceal it by paying the author she stole from. She was wrong, but she atoned for it, and the plagiarism doesn't appear to be typical of her work. (This is how Jon Wiener summed up the case in his book Historians in Trouble.) So while I'm not a Goodwin fan, I also don't think it's fair to characterize her as a plagiarist.

Thanks for the heads up on Historians in Trouble, I have added it to my TBR pile.

Herman Wouk is also a skilled writer but that does not make him a historian. Committing plagiary on the other hand does make Kerns a plagiarist. In my opinion being a plagiarist is like being virgin. You are or you aren't and there is no going back.

Plagiarism is still plagiarism, regardless of whether or not the author apologizes. And, if you read Historians in Trouble you'll find that she hired a publicist to remake her image, so I wouldn't say she completely fessed up to her mistakes. She tried to cover them up on more than one occasion. Another interesting book that deals with her plagiarism, as well as that of Stephen Ambrose, is Past Imperfect by Peter Hoffer.

Lastly, she was trained as a political scientist, so while she writes books that might be "history" books, she is not a trained historian.