This book was a birthday gift from my sister last year and I loved it. I previously read Team of Rivals which deserves every word of praise it garners so I was excited to read another book by DKG. This book highlights four different American presidents: Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson. DKG points out that she is only focusing on LBJ’s civil rights policies, and avoiding his handling of the Vietnam War. I also learned that DKG was an intern for LBJ and that she helped him write his memoirs after he left office.
This book talks about the different struggles each man faced and how the overcoming of those obstacles shaped them into the leaders they became. For Lincoln it was his abject poverty and a poor family situation. Teddy Roosevelt was extremely sickly as a child and bullied. FDR survived polio. LBJ did not have childhood trauma to overcome but like the other men, did lose an election prior to becoming president.
This book is essentially four mini biographies and each is excellent.
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