Doris Kearns Goodwin

Harvard Book Store and Mass Humanities welcome Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer and historian DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN—the bestselling author of Team of Rivals and The Bully Pulpit—for a discussion of her highly anticipated latest book, Leadership: In Turbulent Times.

About Leadership

Are leaders born or made? Where does ambition come from? How does adversity affect the growth of leadership? Does the leader make the times or do the times make the leader?

In Leadership, Goodwin draws upon the four presidents she has studied most closely—Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson (in civil rights)—to show how they recognized leadership qualities within themselves and were recognized as leaders by others. By looking back to their first entries into public life, we encounter them at a time when their paths were filled with confusion, fear, and hope.

Leadership tells the story of how they all collided with dramatic reversals that disrupted their lives and threatened to shatter forever their ambitions. Nonetheless, they all emerged fitted to confront the contours and dilemmas of their times.

No common pattern describes the trajectory of leadership. Although set apart in background, abilities, and temperament, these men shared a fierce ambition and a deep-seated resilience that enabled them to surmount uncommon hardships. At their best, all four were guided by a sense of moral purpose. At moments of great challenge, they were able to summon their talents to enlarge the opportunities and lives of others.

This seminal work provides an accessible and essential roadmap for aspiring and established leaders in every field. In today’s polarized world, these stories of authentic leadership in times of apprehension and fracture take on a singular urgency.

Praise

"Four towering individuals . . . in a masterwork on how good leaders become great leaders, how burning personal ambition can be elevated into driving ambition for a cause greater than self. Riveting, uplifting, and incisive, Leadership is a culminating work of a true intellectual artist." —Jim Collins, author of Good to Great

"Business students invariably ask me: 'With what historical figure would you like to have lunch?' Doris Kearns Goodwin has prepared a marvelous banquet with four leaders whose lives provide lessons for all of us. Pull up a chair." —Warren Buffett

“Goodwin further burnishes her credentials as a popular historian with this thoughtful revisiting of the lives of four presidents to whom she has previously dedicated individual books—Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson—with the aim of obtaining answers to eternal questions about leadership, including what life experiences contribute to it and whether “the times make the leader” or vice versa . . . the tone is inspirational, setting forth examples of how to do leadership right.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“With impeccable timing, the acclaimed historian focuses on the ways four presidents navigated the country through wrenching clashes and crises . . . The most remarkable aspects of this book are the astute psychological portraits of these leaders: comprehensive, human, and engaging, clearly the results of long study . . . In intimate, knowing ways, Goodwin crafts history as aspiration—or at least inspiration—for readers; let's hope a hefty portion of those readers have titles that begin with Sen. or Rep.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)