In Turbulent Times
by Doris Kearns Goodwin
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American basketball player (1978–2020)
Recommended by 8 notable people, including Bill Gates and Ryan Holiday
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See customer reviews on Amazon →Doris Kearns Goodwin structures Leadership as a sequence of long, scene-driven presidential portraits that trace ambition, crisis, and decision-making across four case studies. Reading feels like watching extended political vignettes: private crises, public maneuvering, and personality sketches woven into comparative threads. The most useful material is the textured narrative that makes abstract leadership tensions concrete. The main limitation is recurring detail and archival detours that slow momentum; readers who wanted sharp, short prescriptions will likely find the pace indulgent.
This summary and audience guidance are AI-generated from the book's description and its recommendation history, last updated May 2026. Recommendations, quotes and sources elsewhere on this page come from published material and are not generated.
Are leaders born or made Where does ambition come from How does adversity affect the growth of leadership Does the leader make the times or do the times make the leader In Leadership, Goodwin draws upon the four presidents she has studied most closely?Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson (in civil ri...
Difficulty:hard
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View available editions on AmazonWhy recommended
Recommended by 8 sources and appears in Books Recommended by Ryan Holiday, American History, and Leadership.
People and public figures who have recommended this book.
Recommendation proof is sourced from public posts, interviews, reading lists, and cited references.
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Consider The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy. Recommended by 8 sources.
“Soft-spoken, heavily illustrated fable built from short dialogues and watercolor sketches. Each spread pairs a spare line of text with a loose drawing, so the pleasure is visual and aphoristic rather than narrative; readers collect felt-true sentences more than plot. Most useful when you want quick consolations, a prompt for conversation with a child, or a pause during a rough day. Limiting if you want sustained argument, concrete advice, or tightly plotted storytelling: the repetition of gentleness can feel sentimental or thin after a while.”
Each recommendation is collected from a public source — interviews, articles, or curated lists — and linked to its original URL. Books with many verifiable recommendations from respected people rank higher.
