Howdy folks! Francis here again for another Francis Friday.
As you can probably tell, we’re all still on a high from our trip to Springfield, IL and all the great Lincoln history we were able to soak in. Just like for James T. Kirk, our 16th President has been a great hero of mine since I was small, no doubt partially due to my growling up only a dozen or so miles from both his birthplace and boyhood home in Central Kentucky.
One of the things I remembered when we were in the bookstore of the Lincoln Presidential Museum (always the best place to end such trips) is that I neglected to mention perhaps the very best book of all on Lincoln.
Published in 2006 by perhaps one of the greatest living historians of our time, Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin is perhaps the most accessible and insightful of all the many books written about the Great Emancipator. All of her books are great reads, but this one is something special in that it brings the reader inside the political genius of Abraham Lincoln, something that is far too often overshadowed by his legend or by the events surrounding him as president.
When we entered the cabinet room of the Lincoln Museum there was a life size set of figures there present representing all the many players who are featured in the book: Seward, Chase, Stanton, Bates and all the rest. Thanks to Robert’s photography, that’s the image you see at the top of this post.
If you’re wanting more information about the book before purchasing it, I invite you to check out the hour long interview below that the author did when it was first published. It’s well worth buying and enjoying . . .
