Leadership in Turblent Times: Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book review

Goodwin D. K. Leadership in Turbulent Times / translated into Ukrainian by Kateryna Smagliy. Kharkiv: Vivat, 2021. 592 p.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17721/2521-1706.2021.12.11

Mariia Kravchenko

Ph. D. (Нistory), Junior Researcher

State Institution «Institute of World History of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine», Kyiv, Ukraine

Abstract. The review contains a quite through analysis of the book «Leadership in Turbulent Times» by Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. The book was originally published in 2018 (New York, USA, Simon & Schuster), the Ukrainian edition appeared in 2021 (Kharkiv, Ukraine, Vivat Publishing) with the support from the Public Affairs Section, the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine.

The reviewer highlights the core book’s idea of leadership development that unites the stories about four American presidents (Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson) in one research. All the main structural elements of Goodwin’s Leadership are carefully examined: Introduction, Part 1. Ambition and the recognition of leadership, Part 2. Adversity and growth, Part 3. How they led: man and the times, Epilogue: Of death and legacy The study underlines the book’s strengths and weaknesses. And in addition, the review commends the work with notes and abbreviations by the author of book translation into Ukrainian Dr Kateryna Smagliy.

Summing up the analysis, the reviewer points out that the Ukrainian translation appearance of Leadership by Doris Kearns Goodwin is to be welcomed. Distribution this book to the libraries and including it to the literature lists in universities courses for students specializing in the U.S. history can be a major impetus for the development and improvement of American studies in Ukraine.

Key words: Doris K. Goodwin, Leadership, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson.

Submitted 08.05.2021

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