Doris Kearns Goodwin, a winning historian and legendary presidential biographer, joins us for an unforgettable conversation on Leadership in Turbulent Times: Hope from History’s Hardships
Doris Kearns Goodwin is a world-renowned presidential historian, public speaker, and Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times #1 best-selling author. She returns to the SVAF stage in 2026 to discuss “Leadership in Turbulent Times: Hope from History’s Hardships.” Time and again, our country has emerged from its darkest chapters with greater strength, renewed purpose, and a spirit of shared sacrifice. History provides lessons, solace, and above all, hope—to serve as our compass today, and no one is better qualified to put the past and present in its proper perspective than Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Goodwin is also celebrating the success of her eighth book, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s, now in paperback. Her stirring memoir follows the emotional journey she and her husband, Richard (Dick) Goodwin, embarked upon over 42 years of marriage. Richard Goodwin was one of the talented men that lead John Kennedy’s New Frontier. In his thirties, he both named and helped design Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and was a speechwriter and close advisor to Robert Kennedy
Goodwin’s remarkable career as a presidential historian and author began when, as a 24-year-old Harvard graduate student, she was selected to join the White House Fellows, one of America’s most prestigious programs for leadership and public service. Goodwin worked with Johnson in the White House and later assisted him in the writing of his memoirs.
That experience sparked her first major work, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, which became a national bestseller and earned widespread critical acclaim. In 2019, the book was re-released with a new foreword highlighting LBJ’s enduring domestic achievements.
Goodwin was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II. The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys were adapted into an award-winning five-part television miniseries. Her memoir, Wait Till Next Year, is the heartwarming story of family, childhood, and baseball. Her sixth book, The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism, won the Carnegie Medal and is being developed into a film. Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln served as the basis for Steven Spielberg’s hit film Lincoln and was awarded the prestigious Lincoln Prize, the inaugural Book Prize for American History, and the Lincoln Leadership Prize.
Well known for her appearances and commentary on television, Goodwin is a trusted voice seen in documentaries, including Ken Burns’ The History of Baseball and The Roosevelts: An Intimate History; and on news and cable networks, and shows including Meet The Press and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
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