lightreads

Leadership: in Turbulent Times

3/5. Sketches of the biographies, ascensions, and *points at title* of Lincoln, both Roosevelts, and LBJ. This is interesting, but it also smacks way more of so I did a whole bunch of research on these guys for other books, let me repackage it than I was expecting.

And yes. Obviously it is depressing to read right now. That was the point, when you come right down to it.

Team of Rivals

And on the topic of skinny dudes from Illinois who get elected President . . .

Man. Nine hundred firm, densely-researched, elegant pages on Lincoln and his cabinet, focusing on the political rivals he turned into friends because, well, he was not kidding when he said "with malice towards none." It's a book about leadership – how to get people to do what you need them to do when they don't want to while treating them with respect and courtesy. Though really, I can just shorthand to say it's a book about getting people.

I really like what Goodwin does here. She's the sort of historian who lets you see her hands nearly the whole time, but in that calm, measured way where she's just holding up these people for you to look at, not pinching their cheeks and primping them up first. Lincoln has been a particular historical darling for the past few decades, and I'm really not immune. This book is unsentimental nearly all the time, and it moved me a great deal. And not just because I was thinking about comparisons – presidents who write, presidents who orate, presidents who believe in consensus without believing implicitly in centrism. I was making those comparisons, though.