Team of Rivals

Lincoln managing a cabinet of men who each believed themselves his better, and turning that rivalry into a government that held the Union together. Goodwin shows leadership as the art of binding talented, difficult people to a common purpose, even people who wanted your job and doubted your fitness for it. The book is a study in temperament under pressure, and a reminder that holding a divided house together is itself a discipline, not a gift.

The historian who writes the inner life of American leadership through the relationships that shaped it. Team of Rivals showed Lincoln managing a cabinet of men who thought themselves his betters, and turning rivalry into government. She worked in the Johnson White House as a young woman and has written the presidency from the inside of its temperament ever since.