Last year my book, Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, was reviewed by Jonathan W. White in Civil War Times, the preeminent Civil War magazine. And now I’ve written a book review that is published in the most recent issue of Civil War Times.
The book I reviewed is called Leadership in Turbulent Times and is written by noted presidential scholar Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Most people of heard of Doris Kearns Goodwin from her bestselling book, Team of Rivals, about Abraham Lincoln picking many of his political rivals to key cabinet positions. Initially well sold, it got a huge boost after then-candidate Barack Obama was seen carrying it on the campaign trail prior to his 2008 election, then again when Obama picked his rival Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State, much like Lincoln put William Seward in that position. Another boost came from Steven Spielberg’s movie, Lincoln, which was based on a tiny part of Goodwin’s book.
Goodwin has written several other biographies of American presidents, including Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and her one-time boss, Lyndon Johnson. She draws on all of these to extract leadership qualities exhibited by the four men, each of whom faced significant crises during their terms as president.
As I note in the review, she parses out each man’s characteristics separately and doesn’t explicitly compare their leadership traits. It becomes clear that each man was different in how they led, with these differences reflective both of their own personalities and the needs of the times they lived in. It’s an interesting book from which readers should gain a lot of thoughtful insight.
This is my first published book review in a national magazine, although not my first published book review. Since late 2015 I’ve published two dozen book reviews in The Lincolnian, the quarterly newsletter of the Lincoln Group of DC. There are many more reviews to come, including one for a book sent to me by the publisher that will appear in the next issue. I also hope to do more book reviews in Civil War Times and other national magazines. In addition, I’ll be pitching some article ideas that I hope will garner interest.
Up to this point my main writing focus has been on books, but my goals for 2019 include writing more magazine articles and entering more writing contests. This review of Goodwin’s book counts towards the former and I’ve already entered one contest (I’ll know if I made the cut by the end of the month).
If you haven’t seen Jonathan W. White’s review of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, here is a photo of the page in Civil War Times. You can read more about the review in this previous article.
David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.
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