Richard Carwardine at Literary Review:
During the tumult of the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln happily declared that ‘he was a party man and did not believe in any man who was not’. This remark to a conservative Democrat, and the allied belief of a radical Republican that ‘no man was ever more firmly or consistently the representative of a party than was Mr Lincoln’, are not quoted in Matthew Pinsker’s fine study of the 16th president’s political formation and party practice, but they capture the spirit of this important book.
Pinsker’s title is arresting. Yet, sworn in as the Republican president of a fractured nation in March 1861 – after seven southern states had broken away to form an independent Confederacy – Lincoln seemed ill-equipped to wield the power of his office. Few American presidents have had so little executive experience. He had been a legislator in the Illinois Assembly and in the US House of Representatives; he ran a law office not known for its efficiency.
more here.
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