Profiles in Leadership
Historians on the Elusive Quality of Greatness
-
- $28.99
Publisher Description
“Though we cannot learn leadership, we can learn from leaders, which is why this volume is so engaging and valuable.”—Boston Globe
What made FDR a more successful leader during the Depression crisis than Hoover? Why was Eisenhower more effective as supreme commander at war than he was as president? Who was Pauli Murray and why was she a pivotal figure in the civil rights movement?
Find the answers to these questions and more in essays by great historians including Sean Wilentz, Alan Brinkley, Annette Gordon-Reed, Jean Strouse, Frances FitzGerald, and others. Entertaining and insightful individually, taken together the essays address the enduring ingredients of leadership, the focus of an introduction by Walter Isaacson.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In a thought-provoking book designed to reconsider the attributes of American leadership, Issacson (Einstein and His Universe), former managing editor of Time and now president of the Aspen Institute, has assembled a group of distinguished historians to address some seminal figures in terms of their vision, principles, flexibility, and pragmatism. Many of the contributors have first-rate r sum s in scholarship, letters, and research, including Frances Fitzgerald, Sean Wilentz, Jean Strouse, and Robert Dallek. Quality writing, incisive analysis, and valuable revelations accompany each essay, whether it's Kevin Baker's take on the unpredictable baseball manager John Joseph McGraw, Evan Thomas's emotional deconstruction of Robert F. Kennedy, or Annette Gordon-Reed's perceptive measure of W.E.B. Du Bois. Three standout essays concern the moral and strategic strengths and weaknesses of Gen. George Washington; Joseph, chief of the Nez Perce Indians; and presidents Hoover and FDR. At a time when leadership is lacking, this memorable book culls examples from our past to reveal what makes a person stand above the rest. It's unfortunate that just one of the subjects civil rights activist Pauli Murray is a woman. 13 illus.
