My plan to go and see Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln on 12th February, Lincoln’s birthday, has been overturned by the landing in my diary of a flock of meetings that day. At least I can now find an earlier date. I’m a bit of a Lincoln groupie and the film has had fantastic reviews. If there’s anybody out there who hasn’t yet read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s [amazon_link id=”0141043725″ target=”_blank” ]Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln[/amazon_link], an important inspiration for Tony Kushner’s screenplay, now you really have no excuse. It’s a fascinating book – and there is a [amazon_link id=”0241966086″ target=”_blank” ]film tie-in edition[/amazon_link]. The main lesson I took from it concerns Lincoln’s ability to think strategically, by which I really mean keeping focused on the ultimate outcome and having the patience to stitch together meanwhile the many actions and conversations it takes to achieve a difficult goal. That ability to be strategic, to be anything other than ultra-short term, has vanished from modern public life and I suppose was rare in the 19th century too.

[amazon_image id=”0241966086″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Team of Rivals: Lincoln Film Tie-in Edition: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln[/amazon_image]