In Leadership in Turbulent Times: Lessons from the Presidents, Doris Kearns Goodwin focuses on four American Presidents at times of great national crisis. The four, about each of whom Goodwin has already written splendid biographies, are Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson. Part I of this book, “Ambition and the Recognition of Leadership,” explores the early lives of each one and how he came to engage in public life. Part II, “Adversity and Growth,” shows the four meeting up with and overcoming devastating personal difficulties and political reversals. And in the third and last part, “The Leader and the Times: How They Led,” we see them as Presidents confronting national emergencies: Lincoln preparing to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, Teddy Roosevelt dealing with the Great Coal Strike, FDR in the first 100 days of his presidency moving to counter the miseries inflicted by the Great Depression, and LBJ’s work to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. As Goodwin puts it in her Foreword, “at their formidable best, when guided by a sense of moral purpose, they were able to channel their ambitions and summon their talents to enlarge the opportunities and lives of others.” 

In each of the three Parts and a moving Epilogue, Goodwin, as the supremely gifted storyteller that she is, illuminates the transformative role that qualities of leadership can play -- qualities such as empathy, resilience, the capacity to learn from even the most grievous experience, and the insistence on remaining accessible to friends and enemies alike. Published in 2018, this book was never more needed than it is today.