Profiles in Leadership, Walter Isaacson
Profiles in Leadership, Walter Isaacson
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Profiles in Leadership
Historians on the Elusive Quality of Greatness

Author: Walter Isaacson

Narrator: Nicholas Hormann

Unabridged: 11 hr 54 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/19/2010


Synopsis

The best historians in the land consider examples of great leadership, well known and surprising, from Washington to Willkie and more.

What made FDR a more successful leader during the Depression crisis than Hoover? Why was Eisenhower more effective as supreme commander during World War II than he was as president? Why was Grant one of the best presidents of his day, if not in all of American history? What drove Bobby Kennedy into the scrum of electoral politics? Who was Pauli Murray and why was she one of the most decisive figures in the movement for civil rights?

Find the surprising and revelatory answers to these questions and more in this collection of new essays by great historians, including Sean Wilentz, Alan Brinkley, Annette Gordon-Reed, Jean Strouse, Robert Dallek, Frances FitzGerald, and others. Entertaining and insightful individually, taken together the essays represent a valuable set of reflections on the enduring ingredients of leadership.

About Walter Isaacson

Walter Isaacson is the president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan educational and policy studies institute based in Washington, DC. He has been the chairman and CEO of CNN and the editor of Time Magazine. In 2011 he wrote a biography titled “Steve Jobs”, which was based off on over forty interviews with Jobs over a two-year period up until shortly before his death. It became an international best-seller, breaking all records for sales of a biography.

Isaacson was born on May 20, 1952, in New Orleans. He is a graduate of Harvard College and of Pembroke College of Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He began his career at “The Sunday Times” of London and then the New Orleans “Times-Picayune”. He joined “Times” in 1978 and served as a political correspondent, national editor, and editor of digital media before becoming the magazine’s 14th editor in 1996. He became chairman and CEO of CNN in 2001, and then president and CEO of the Aspen Institute in 2003.

Along with “Steve Jobs”, Isaacson has published several other books, including: “Einstein: His Life and Universe” (2007), “Benjamin Franklin: An American Life” (2003) and Kissinger: A Biography” (1992), as well as coauthor of “The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made” (1986). His most recent book, “The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution” (2014) is a biographical tale of the people who invented the computer, Internet and the other great innovations of the digital age. It became a New York Times bestseller.

Isaacson has been awarded many accolades of the years, including in 2012, when he was selected as one of the Time 100, the magazine’s list of the most influential people in the world.


Reviews

Goodreads review by robin

Thirteen American Leaders Although academic history has become a specialized enterprise, there has been a resurgence of interest in popular histories and biographies as Americans seek to understand their past. This new book of essays edited by Walter Isaacson, "Profiles in Leadership: Historians on t......more

Goodreads review by Jon

This is not the book I thought it was. I thought it was written by Walter Isaacson. It's many authors. Some stories are good, most average. Or maybe I was just to disappointed to appreciate it.......more

Goodreads review by Timi

The profiled individuals were all Americans, Interesting profiles nonetheless. Some unlikely and unexpected leaders made the cut but it was welcomed. No particular trait was zeroed-in as the condition of greatness but you get the sense that all leaders profiled were tactically and strategically astu......more

Goodreads review by Toni

Quote from the book "Leaders aren’t just the few famous people who dominate the news or find their place in history books. They don’t always represent the majority. They aren’t always popular. They don’t always win, and they aren’t always remembered. Leaders such as Pauli Murray, brave and obscure m......more


Quotes

Good bedside reading for history buffs.—Kirkus Reviews

Incisive and shrewd, this eclectic collection offers rich food for thought for students of history and management alike.—Booklist

At a time when leadership is lacking, this memorable book culls examples from our past to reveal what makes a person stand above the rest.—Publishers Weekly