From a Pulitzer Prize–winning presidential historian, “Leadership should help us raise our expectations of our national leaders, our country and ourselves” (The Washington Post).

Doris Kearns Goodwin draws upon the four presidents she has studied most closely—Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson—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 ready to confront the dilemmas of their times. 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. Does the leader make the times or do the times make the leader?

“Doris Kearns Goodwin leads the league of presidential historians” —USA Today

“Inspiring.” —Christian Science Monitor

“Insightful, readable, compelling.” —The Boston Globe.

“Written in the companionable prose that makes Goodwin’s books surefire best sellers.” —The New York Times Book Review

“A bravura performance.” —Washington Independent Review of Books

“If ever our nation needed a short course on presidential leadership, it is now.” —Seattle Times

“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