Four good men

Ms Goodwin here explicitly takes up the formation of her subjects' characters, and how their most notable qualities equipped them to lead the country during trying times

In Turbulent Times   

Doris Kearns Goodwin   

Simon & Schuster

473 pages; $30

“The story of Theodore Roosevelt is the story of a small boy who read about great men and decided he wanted to be like them.” In her new book, Leadership: In Turbulent Times, the acclaimed presidential biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin quotes this line from The Boys’ Life of Theodore Roosevelt, a 1918 volume by Hermann Hagedorn, one of Roosevelt’s earliest (and most sycophantic) biographers. By regaling young readers with stirring tales of the beloved president’s exploits, Hagedorn aimed not simply to burnish his hero’s reputation but also to forge the