WSB Exclusive Speaker
Presidential Historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning Author
Doris Kearns Goodwin offers context for our turbulent times and shares how today's leaders can learn from the past.
CONTACT WSB FOR Doris Kearns Goodwin'S SPEAKING FEES
Doris Kearns Goodwin is a world-renowned presidential historian, public speaker and Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times #1 best-selling author. Since 2020 she has served as executive producer for the History Channel’s miniseries events Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt, with more to come!
Goodwin is the author of seven critically acclaimed and New York Times best-selling books, including her most recent, Leadership in Turbulent Times, which incorporates her five decades of scholarship studying Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson. Goodwin was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in history for No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II.
Well known for her appearances and commentary on television, Goodwin is seen frequently in documentaries and on television news and cable networks and late-night talk shows.
Goodwin’s interest in presidential leadership was inspired by her experience as a 24-year-old White House Fellow, working directly for President Johnson in his last year in the White House, and later assisting him in the preparation of his memoirs.
Goodwin graduated magna cum laude from Colby College. She earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Government from Harvard University, where she taught Government, including a course on the American Presidency. Goodwin lives in Boston. She was the first woman to enter the Boston Red Sox locker room in 1979, and is a devoted fan of the World Series-winning team.
At this challenging time in our nation’s history, as we face a cascading series of crises—a fight to protect democracy in Ukraine while we worry about the fragility of our democracy at home, a country more polarized than any time since the Civil War, still grappling with the struggle for racial and economic justice and the devastating impact of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, “America’s historian-in-chief” Doris Kearns Goodwin puts this defining time in historical context. Not since the 1850s has our country been so politically divided, not since the Great Depression and World War II have we experienced such a string of collective hardships, not since the 1960s have we struggled so for social and economic equality. Drawing from her most recent book, Leadership: In Turbulent Times, Goodwin transports us back in time to provide perspective and analysis as she helps us understand how the presidents she’s studied most closely—Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson—provide proof that as a country and a people we’ve been through most difficult times before and came through stronger. History, as Goodwin demonstrates, provides lessons, solace, and even hope.
Through custom-tailored video addresses and fireside chats presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times #1 bestselling author Doris Kearns Goodwin calls upon her deep knowledge and understanding of previous crises to illustrate how leaders motivated and inspired their teams: How they walked the fine line between acknowledging brutal facts and providing hope and reassurance; pivoted to meet changing conditions, communicated clear plans, set targets, demonstrated resilience, and encouraged activities to reduce tension and replenish energy. These valuable lessons from the past provide insights and a road map for how we can remain motivated, agile and hopeful as we face and persevere through this global pandemic, our own rendezvous with destiny.
Spanning 100 years of history, bestselling author Doris Kearns Goodwin takes audiences on the ultimate journey through some of the most momentous decades in American history – the industrial revolution, the rise of the robber barons, the Progressive Era, the Great Depression, and two World Wars. With an uncanny gift for both depth and detail, Goodwin masterfully weaves together a striking number of dramatic and complex story lines drawing from her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II (1995) and her bestselling book, The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism to provide an intimate, comprehensive and ultimately unforgettable portrait of the era’s three extraordinary leaders – Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt – along with the scintillating cast of characters, who together transformed the country.
Based on her longtime best-selling and award-winning book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, esteemed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin presents audiences with essential, object and fresh lessons in leadership, political acumen and management strategy. By deeply examining Lincoln’s leadership style and keen understanding of human behavior, Goodwin makes the case for Lincoln’s political genius by explaining his skillful navigation of the “team of rivals” he constructed to achieve not only political success, but also victory in the Civil War. Underestimated as both an effective orator and leader, this ordinary and extraordinary leader surprised both his colleagues and critics as he rose to political prominence, and today is remembered as one of the greatest presidents of all time. Goodwin, whose Team of Rivals was the basis for Steven Spielberg’s award-winning film Lincoln, also shares stories about her involvement in the hit film that saw Daniel Day-Lewis so convincingly bring Abraham Lincoln to life for millions of moviegoers.
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