Page 54 - Time Magazine, Sep. 17, 2018

TheBrief TIME with ...

Historian Doris photo of her—but she says anyone can use that tip.
Kearns Goodwin And a coda to LBJ’s story, about his lack of leader-
ship on Vietnam, neatly highlights the stakes of
looks to past leaders for her lessons.
Goodwin has a close-up perspective on John-
lessons on the present son, having helped with his memoirs following a
By Lily Rothman fellowship in his White House, but that’s not the
only reason Leadership is personal in ways a presi-
dential biography can’t be. The subject demands to
be related to one’s own life, and Goodwin isn’t im-
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN LIVES SURROUNDED BY mune. Lincoln’s praise for his team was a reminder
American history. Her home in Concord, Mass., is to thank her own helpers even more. Each of the
minutes from the site of one of the first battles of the four Presidents she profiles had to return from at
American Revolution. The house itself, cool on a day least one big setback. Similarly, she faced plagia-
that broke heat records in nearby Boston, is full of GOODWIN rism accusations in the early 2000s, which she
history too. What was once a three-car garage is now QUICK has attributed to mistakes caused by a faulty note-
a library. Abraham Lincoln books are in there, and FACTS taking system. Goodwin retreated briefly from
Franklin Roosevelt is nearby. The section on Theo- public life before returning with Team of Rivals,
dore Roosevelt is upstairs. A small room with exer- the best-selling Lincoln biography that inspired
Presidential
cise bikes is devoted to memoir. Fiction has its place both Steven Spielberg (it’s a basis for Lincoln) and
roommates
too. And at the end of one hallway, there’s a section Goodwin then Senator Barack Obama, who called her to
that might surprise visitors to the home of one of the once spent a discuss it. There was also an overlay of personal
nation’s most famous historians: business and psy- night at the sadness; Goodwin was writing an epilogue about
chology books on leadership. White House the Presidents’ deaths just as her husband, JFK
armed with a
That section is new. These—and the papers in and Johnson adviser Richard N. Goodwin, faced
map showing
dozens of colorful three-ring binders in a nearby where FDR’s the final stages of cancer. He died in May, and she
room—were research materials for Goodwin’s new friends had says it was helpful to reflect at that time on what it
book, Leadership: In Turbulent Times, out Sept. 18. slept. (She meant to leave a legacy.
Leadership guru is a role Goodwin, 75, has filled stayed where “Knowing that he felt that he had an extraordi-
Winston
informally for years, as a frequent speaker on les- nary life and that the world understood that too,”
Churchill did.)
sons gleaned from the Presidents who have been she says, “was just such a comforting factor.”
the subjects of her award-winning biographies. In Long reads
her new book, Goodwin has taken “her guys”— When she met OVER LUNCH AT A CONCORD INN that’s older than
Lincoln, both Roosevelts and Lyndon B. Johnson— J.K. Rowling, the United States, Goodwin returns to a favorite
they bonded
and crafted elements of their parallel stories into a story about FDR: in 1940, he set a target for U.S.
over editors
comparatively slim volume (read: nearly 500 pages who said their warplane production that seemed impossible to
counting the bibliography) for history buffs and books needed hit—and yet that goal would “ignite the imagina-
C-suiters alike. to be shorter. tion” of the aviation industry. The moral is that
Goodwin says the writing experience reminded leadership involves presenting others with a vision
At bat
her of graduate school, when she and her friends of what they might achieve.
Goodwin, the
would talk about how their studies might offer a first female The new book also means to offer an instructive
path forward in their own lives. It felt like “coming journalist new perspective. Its most urgent lesson isn’t found
full circle,” she says—and allowed her to feel like to enter in any specific example of how a great man faced
she was paying something of a debt to the leaders the Boston down a great problem. Rather, she says, it’s in see-
Red Sox
she has chronicled over the years. ing just how massive their problems were.
locker room,
“Each time I finished a project, I had to move refuses to jinx “This has become more apparent over the past
that guy’s books to another room, and I always felt her favorite couple of years: we’re going to ignore history at our
I was vaguely betraying him,” Goodwin says. “This team with a own peril,” she says. “I’d like to think it would give
time I could keep them all where they were.” World Series people reassurance to know that if you think we’re
forecast,
In Leadership, each President gets his start, in the worst of times right now, it isn’t the worst.”
despite its
faces obstacles personal and national, and achieves strong season. Yes, these times qualify as turbulent, she says,
success. Some moments stand out: Teddy Roos- although she didn’t know how much when she
evelt’s handling of a strike or FDR’s road map for started the book about five years ago. Beyond any
the first 100 days, which became a staple for fu- specific failures of leadership in its capital, she
ture Presidents’ first terms. From Lincoln comes sees the U.S. as overwhelmed by polarization. The
the idea of writing “hot” letters, never to be sent, four examples she uses may help citizens recognize
to get out one’s anger. It’s hard to imagine Good- good leadership when they see it. But even more,
win angry—she won’t let TIME take an unsmiling she hopes citizens will remember that greater
12 TIME September 17, 2018