"A novel and brilliant look at how Abraham Lincoln mastered the art of leadership: acclaimed historian Michael J. Gerhardt, who appeared during the impeachment proceedings of President Trump, reveals how a group of five men mentored an obscure lawyer with no executive experience to become American's greatest leader"--

In 1849, when Abraham Lincoln returned to Springfield, Illinois, after two seemingly uninspiring years in the U.S. House of Representatives, his political career appeared all but finished. Yet within a decade he would reenter politics, become a leader of the Republican Party, win the 1860 presidential election, and keep America together during its most perilous period. Gerhardt reveals that Lincoln read voraciously and learned from the successes, failures, oratory, and political maneuvering of a surprisingly diverse handful of men, some of whom he had never met but others of whom he knew intimately. Lincoln learned valuable lessons on leadership, mastering party politics, and much more, allowing him to emerge from obscurity and learn how to lead. -- adapted from jacket