After 'living with' presidents Taft, Lincoln, Johnson and both Roosevelts, historian and author Doris Kearns Goodwin thinks her next project won't be about specific leaders, but rather what we can learn from them.
"I think there are universal traits of leadership that the best leaders show. And if I can illustrate them with stories... then I think I won’t be spending 10 more years on yet another person."
The Bully Pulpit, Goodwin's latest book, examines two of those leaders, presidents William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt as well as the rise of muckraking journalism in the early 1900s.
She hopes that her take on history will allow contemporary readers to make a connection with the past.
"If history is ever going to really mean anything to us, we have to really get back in these people’s lives, see their struggles and their triumphs, feel great when they feel joy, feel sad when they feel sad."
Watch the entire PRESS Pass conversation with Doris Kearns Goodwin above and read an excerpt of The Bully Pulpit here.