Four ambitious men

In 1860, four men hoped to become the Republican candidate for US president: Senator William Seward of New York, Governor Salmon Chase of Ohio, Edward Bates of Missouri, and Abraham Lincoln of Illinois.

Doris Kearns Goodwin tells their stories side by side. Lincoln had the least formal education and the least national fame. He grew up poor on the frontier and taught himself by reading whatever he could find. Early losses, including the deaths of his mother and his sister, shaped both his empathy and his bouts of melancholy.