Warriors, Rebels, and Saints

Do leaders make history or does history make leaders? A deep dive into how we define, seek, and become leaders.

We live in a period of leadership in crisis. At home, and across the globe, we sense that unqualified and irresponsible individuals are being elevated to positions of power, strong men and autocrats are consolidating their hold on governance, and the people are losing faith in the prospect of a better future. How have we arrived at this point? And how can we correct our course?

For the past decade, Moshik Temkin has challenged his students at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and around the world to grapple with the nature of leadership as part of his wildly popular course ＂Leaders and Leadership in History.＂ Now, in Warriors, Rebels, and Saints, Temkin refashions the classroom for a wider audience.

Using art, film, and literature to illustrate the drama of the past, Temkin considers how leaders have made decisions in the most difficult circumstances--from the Great Depression of the 1930s to the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo and from the anticolonial wars of the 20th century to the civil rights struggle--and how, in a world desperate for good leadership, we can evaluate those decisions and draw lessons for today.

Moshik Temkin is the Johnson and Johnson Chair in Leadership and History at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University, and Associate Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.