I've realized I love to read history books ever since I read the LBJ biographies by Caro. I received "Bully Pulpit" for Christmas and I'm excited to read it. My only hang up is that Thomas Frank, in Harper's, reviewed her "Team of Rivals" book in this way:
...the “team of rivals” concept [is not even] an innovation of the early 1860s, though Goodwin assures us it is. As the historian James Oakes pointed out in 2008, administrations incorporating the president’s adversaries were standard stuff in the early nineteenth century. They have been fairly common in our own time as well. During the Great Depression, for example, Franklin Roosevelt hired prominent men from the opposition to fill cabinet posts, and almost every subsequent president has followed suit.
[The 'team of rivals'] was, in other words, an unremarkable arrangement, documented here in an unremarkable book, all of it together about as startling as a Hallmark card. How did such a commonplace slice of history come to define our era?
Has anyone read this new book? Is it a worthwhile and accurate read or will I be misguided? It's a big book, so I don't want to waste my time!
If anyone is curious about reading Thomas Frank's further criticism, I could send it to you as well.
Team of Rivals may have been less of a novel concept than Goodwin pitched it - but it was a great read. I especially appreciated getting to know more about Seward - but there's also a lot of great stuff on Bates and Chase.
The New Yorker had a review of her new book that describes how Goodwin uses lesser known historical figures to revisit "the greats" like Lincoln and Roosevelt in an interesting and novel way - in Bully Pulpit's case Taft and some of the progressive newspapermen that aided progressives. I'm excited to read their stories if she can deliver like she did in Team of Rivals.
If for some reason you've had it with Goodwin but want your Teddy, Theodore Rex is a great read as is The Big Burn (although Roosevelt is only part of the story)