Doris Kearns Goodwin's Insightful Analysis of Leadership in Turbulent Times

anonymous: Very few times a book like this comes..it is one of those books which you will remember for a long long time ...
What it takes to be a great leader.??..
it's not a easy path...it takes phenomenal courage to keep going and learn from your mistakes...

Read it...

India on Oct 12, 2023

PugLover: A must read for anyone concerned about the leadership of this country and why it is currently a dismal failure. In the most recent elections the American people have elected a demented old career politician and a dyed in the wool, self-serving narsaccist to the Whitehouse neither of which seem to care or know anything about true leadership. Decisions are made that are not in the best interst of ALL Americans.. These men are not leaders and our government if failing because of it. They represent a special initerest group here and there but they fail to represent Americans as a whole and lack the ability to uphold our ideals and the basic tenents of morality and fairness to every man. The men in this book ARE leaders and lead this country during very turbulent and challenging times . There is much to learn from them, but our current leaders seem immune from learning anything from anybody. Failure to listen is not a leadership skill. Failure to act is not a leadership skill. Pandering to a certain group or class for your personal gain is not a leadership skill. Mental competency, fairness, decisiveness and problem solving ARE leadership skills. The present regime of so-called leaders...

United States on Jul 01, 2023

Shegs: The book was quite neat and I’ve just started reading it. No regrets

United Kingdom on Apr 12, 2023

D. Levesque: J'ai donné ce livra en cadeau et il a beaucoup aimé.

Canada on Nov 28, 2022

Gustavo Cardona e Almeida: Ao longo da história, alguns presidentes americanos conseguiram deixar a sua marcar e mostrar para o mundo que, liderança em momentos difícies é possível.
No livro, a autora Doris Goodwin escreve de forma simples e em um inglês de fácil compreensão o como quatro presidentes, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt e Lyndon Johnson conseguiram navegar durante períodos turbulentos e desafiadores da história americana, garantindo valiosas mudanças para os Estados Unidos. Fiquei surpreso o como a autora trata a coragem dos quatro presidentes, apontando as suas respectivas atitudes durantes estes periodos e mostrando o como liderança em momentos complexos é possível.
Recomendo esse livro para qualquer aficionado por história e política. Vale a leitura.

Brazil on Oct 24, 2022

Kai Lee: I bought the paperback version, the one with the title and the author’s name on the deep blue cover. The font is very small and the printing very light. After a few pages, I almost decided not to continue, if not for the attractive writing style of the author. I am glad I finish the book, but I hope that the 368 pages of texts in small and light print did not do any harm to my eyesight.

The author, a Harvard person, spent her internship at President Lyndon Johnson’s White House. At the end of his Presidency, Johnson asked her to help him with writing his memoir. This was remarkable, as Johnson was of the opinion that “All the historians are Harvard people. It just isn’t fair. Poor old Hoover from West Branch, Iowa, and had no chance with that crowd…..Nor does Lyndon Johnson from Stonewall, Texas.”

The book is an account of how four US Presidents, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt (TR), Franklin Roosevelt (FDR), and Lyndon Johnson (LBJ), led the country through the turbulent times of the Emancipation Proclamation, Coal Strike, The New Deal and Civil Rights.

The organization of the book is somewhat unusual. Instead of finishing the story of one...

United States on Mar 13, 2021

Robert Morris: I read this book when it was first published and recently re-read it after viewing a series of components of Doris Kearns Goodwin's briliant MasterClass, "U.S. Presidential History and Leadership."

Her focus in the book is on four presidents -- Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, and LBJ -- and three separate but related, indeed interdependent themes: Ambition and the Recognition of Leadership, Adversity and Growth, and The Leader and the Times: How They Led. Each theme is uniquely relevant to each of the four presidents.

Goodwin had completed wide and deep research prior to writing a previous book about each of the four. Having done so, she then embarked on additional research "through the exclusive lens of leadership. I felt as if I were meeting them anew. There was much to learn as the elusive theme of leadership assumed center stage...I returned to fundamental questions I had not asked so openly since my days of college and graduate school."

This more recent research was driven by questions such as these:

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

United States on May 25, 2020

Rule 62 Ken: Renowned author Doris Kearns Goodwin has written best-selling biographies of Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson, the last-named of which she worked for and helped to write his autobiography. In her most recent work Leadership in Turbulent Times, she compares and contrasts the leadership qualities and styles of the four iconic chief executives, in a comprehensive examination of how each of the four prepared for and confronted the challenges that each were faced with as president and how each developed and implemented his vision of a better America as president.

The book is divided into three sections which contain alternating chapters on each of the four in chronological order of their presidencies. The first section, entitled "Ambition and the Recognition of Leadership" looks at the paths each of the four men took to rise to positions of leadership, in some cases from humble beginnings, in others aided by wealth and family connections. In the second section "Adversity and Growth", she examines the early political career of her four subjects and how each overcame some personal challenge to rise to national prominence. In Lincoln's...

Canada on Sep 30, 2018