Episode · The Daily Stoic · 2025-09-04
Books mentioned on What You Were NEVER Taught About Lincoln | Doris Kearns Goodwin
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Meditations
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is a collection of personal journals written by the Roman emperor, offering timeless Stoic philosophy on duty, resilience, and self-reflection.
Discussed“And and one of the things that I love about that is there's a scene in it where uh he starts talking about Marcus Aurelius uh Truman does and and Merl asks him a question and and he goes and he gets his copy of meditations and he shows Merl Miller the the underlinings that he's he's done in meditations.”
Where to get it
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Team of Rivals
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin is a historical work detailing Abraham Lincoln's political leadership and his strategy of appointing his former presidential rivals to his cabinet.
Discussed“Actually, let let me let me just get into it right now then because for for for that chapter, I fell in love with a thing that you have as an epigraph to team of rivals, which uh you can see here I have I have done my reading on. These are all all pages I have marked.”
Where to get it
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The Guns of August
The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman is a historical narrative detailing the outbreak and opening month of the First World War.
Discussed“I mean I do believe I remember Barbara Tuckman was a great heroine when I read her book Guns of August when I was in college and she said that even when you're a narrative historian you have to pretend to yourself you do not know how a war ended”
Where to get it
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The Bully Pulpit
The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin is a sweeping historical examination that contrasts the political strategies, media savvy, and presidencies of William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt.
Discussed“I think partly what happened is somebody was telling me they were reading it. A woman wrote me a letter, the bully pulpit um on Teddy and she said she was loving it, but she was reading it at night when she went to bed and she fell asleep and it broke her nose.”
Where to get it
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Plain Speaking
Plain Speaking is a biographical oral history capturing the life and unfiltered voice of American president Harry S.
Recommended“Well, one of my favorite presidential biographies I'm i'm using that term loosely is Merl Miller plain speaking. I love it. And and and one of the things that I love about that is there's a scene in it where uh he starts talking about Marcus Aurelius uh Truman does”
Where to get it
