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Doris Kearns Goodwin is a world-renowned presidential historian, public speaker and Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times No. 1 best-selling author, most recently of An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s, published in April 2024. With five decades of scholarship studying Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, Goodwin returns to the Chautauqua Lecture Series to open a week dedicated to the theme “Past Informs Present: How to Harness History.”

Goodwin’s previous books include the critically acclaimed and New York Times best-selling Leadership: In Turbulent Times, which incorporates her five decades of scholarship studying Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. Leadership inspired the young readers book The Leadership Journey: How Four Kids Became President, which published in September 2024, and the History Channel’s miniseries events “Abraham Lincoln,” “Theodore Roosevelt” and “FDR,” which Goodwin executive produced through her production company, Pastimes Productions.

Goodwin was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in history for No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II. Her Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln was awarded the Lincoln Prize and was in part the basis for Steven Spielberg’s highly acclaimed film “Lincoln.”

Goodwin’s interest in presidential leadership was inspired by her experience as a 24-year-old White House Fellow, working directly for President Johnson in his last year in the White House, and later assisting him in the preparation of his memoirs. Her first book was the widely praised and enormously popular Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream.

Goodwin graduated magna cum laude from Colby College. She earned a Doctor of Philosophy in government from Harvard University, where she taught government, including a course on the American presidency. The first woman to enter the Boston Red Sox locker room in 1979, Goodwin lives in Boston and is a devoted fan of the World Series-winning team.