A treat for lovers of fine history, Profiles in Leadership collects new essays by the best American historians. Considering examples of great leadership, they explore such questions as what made FDR a more successful leader during the Depression crisis than Hoover, why Eisenhower was more effective as supreme commander during the Second World War than he was as president, what drove Bobby Kennedy into the scrum of electoral politics, and why Pauli Murray was one of the most decisive figures in the civil rights movement. The contributors, including Sean Wilentz, Alan Brinkley, Annette Gordon-Reed, Jean Strouse, Robert Dallek and Frances FitzGerald, offer surprising and revelatory answers to these questions and more. Entertaining and insightful individually, together the essays represent a valuable reflection on the enduring ingredients of leadership-the focus of the introduction by Walter Isaacson.