Author Guide · Presidential History
Books Written by
In 1967 Doris Kearns, a 24-year-old Harvard graduate student, arrived in Washington as a White House Fellow just after writing an article in The New Republic about removing Lyndon Johnson from office over Vietnam. Johnson brought her onto his staff anyway, and after he left office she helped him draft his memoirs. Her first book came out of those conversations. Since then she has written about the Kennedys, the Roosevelts, Lincoln and his cabinet, and Theodore Roosevelt and Taft, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1995, and seen Team of Rivals become the basis for Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. This guide covers her eight key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 8 key books · 1976–2024 · Updated October 2026
ClickTap a spine to jump to that book below.
Quick answer
Doris Kearns Goodwin has published eight key books, from Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (1976) to An Unfinished Love Story (2024). The best known are Team of Rivals (2005), about Lincoln and his cabinet, and No Ordinary Time (1994), which won the Pulitzer Prize for History. Start with Team of Rivals; below is where to go next, depending on which president you want.
Where to Start with Doris Kearns Goodwin
If you want her defining book
→ Team of Rivals (2005) — Lincoln and the three men who ran against him for the 1860 nomination.
If you want the Pulitzer winner
→ No Ordinary Time (1994) — Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt during the Second World War.
If you want a shorter way in
→ Leadership (2018) — four presidents compared, from Lincoln to Johnson.
If you want her own story
→ Wait Till Next Year (1997) — a 1950s childhood, the Brooklyn Dodgers and her father.
8 Doris Kearns Goodwin Books, in Order
Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream
Her first book, published as Doris Kearns, follows Johnson from his childhood in Texas through the Senate and the presidency, including the Great Society and Vietnam. It draws on her years on his White House staff and on candid conversations with him after he left office, when she was helping with his memoirs. It became a New York Times bestseller.
The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys
The two Boston families from the baptism of John F. “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald in 1863 to John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961. Goodwin worked through 150 cartons of unsorted family papers and interviewed relatives and friends, including Rose Kennedy. ABC adapted it as the three-part miniseries The Kennedys of Massachusetts (1990). In 2002 the book was found to contain passages taken from other authors without attribution.
No Ordinary Time
Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt from 10 May 1940, when the German offensive in the West ended the “Phoney War”, to Franklin’s death on 12 April 1945: their marriage, their households and the war effort at home. Goodwin interviewed 86 people who knew the couple. The title comes from Eleanor’s speech to the 1940 Democratic convention. It won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1995.
Wait Till Next Year
Her 1950s childhood in Rockville Centre, Long Island. When she was six her father gave her a scorebook, and she kept score of Brooklyn Dodgers games on the radio to tell him about them when he came home. The book follows the Dodgers, her Catholic girlhood and her mother, who had a heart condition and died at 51, until the Dodgers left for Los Angeles and the neighbourhood changed.
Team of Rivals
Lincoln and the men he brought into his cabinet, three of whom — William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase and Edward Bates — had run against him for the 1860 Republican nomination. Goodwin spent about ten years on the 944-page book. It won the 2006 Lincoln Prize and the first New-York Historical Society prize for American history, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Tony Kushner drew on part of it for Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012).
The Bully Pulpit
The friendship of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, which ended when they fought for the 1912 Republican nomination and split the party, helping Woodrow Wilson win. Alongside them runs the story of the muckraking journalists at McClure’s Magazine, including Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, Ray Stannard Baker and William Allen White. It won the 2014 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction.
Leadership
Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson compared in three parts: their early ambition, the setbacks that broke their private and public lives, and one defining act in office each, from the Emancipation Proclamation to the Great Society. Reviewers praised its readability; some disliked the bolded leadership lessons. History based its miniseries Abraham Lincoln (2022) on it.
An Unfinished Love Story
In his last years, she and her husband Richard Goodwin went through the more than 300 boxes of letters, diaries and documents he had kept for over 50 years. He had written speeches for John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, named Johnson’s Great Society and advised Robert Kennedy. The book tells the 1960s through those papers and their conversations; he died in 2018, before it was finished.
In What Order to Read Doris Kearns Goodwin
Each book stands alone, so you can read by president rather than by date. Read in publication order, though, and you see one career run through two families: Johnson, whom she worked for, appears in her first book and her last, and her husband Richard Goodwin wrote speeches for both Kennedy and Johnson.
For history in chronological order of subject, go Lincoln (Team of Rivals), Theodore Roosevelt (The Bully Pulpit), the Kennedy family (The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys), Franklin Roosevelt (No Ordinary Time) and Johnson (Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream). Leadership works best after two or three of these, since it returns to the same men.
A reading path
1. Team of Rivals (2005)
2. No Ordinary Time (1994)
3. The Bully Pulpit (2013)
4. Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (1976)
5. An Unfinished Love Story (2024)
Everything Else Doris Kearns Goodwin Published
Beyond the 8 key books: 2 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Other books
2
2 books · 2000–2024
- 2000Every Four Yearson presidential campaign coverage from 1896 to 2000
- 2024The Leadership Journeyher first book for young readers, adapted from Leadership, illustrated by Amy June Bates
The years · 1943–2024
Quick facts about Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Known for
- Big, readable histories of American presidents built on private papers and interviews, above all her book about Abraham Lincoln and his cabinet
- 1943
- Born in Brooklyn, New York
- 1967
- White House Fellow under Lyndon Johnson
- 2005
- Team of Rivals
- Born
- 4 January 1943, Brooklyn, New York; grew up in Rockville Centre, Long Island
- Education
- Colby College, BA 1964; Harvard University, PhD in government, 1968
- Worked
- White House Fellow from 1967, then on Lyndon Johnson’s staff; taught government at Harvard for about ten years
- Married
- Richard N. Goodwin, speechwriter for Kennedy and Johnson, in 1975; he died in 2018
- Honours
- Pulitzer Prize for History (1995), National Humanities Medal (1996), Lincoln Prize (2006), Andrew Carnegie Medal (2014)
- On screen
- Her books underlie Lincoln (2012) and History’s Abraham Lincoln (2022); she also produced History’s Washington (2020)
The red mark is 2005: Team of Rivals, her book about Lincoln and his cabinet.
How Doris Kearns Goodwin Writes: History from the Inside of a Household
Goodwin builds her books on private material and people who were in the room. For The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys she worked through 150 cartons of family papers; for No Ordinary Time she interviewed 86 people who knew the Roosevelts; An Unfinished Love Story rests on more than 300 boxes her husband kept. With Johnson, the source was the man himself, in conversations after he left office.
Her method is the group portrait. Instead of following one president from birth to death, she sets him beside the people around him: Eleanor next to Franklin, Seward, Chase and Bates next to Lincoln, Taft and the McClure’s journalists next to Theodore Roosevelt. Private life sits next to public events, so a marriage, an illness or a falling-out carries as much weight as an election. She has said her love of history came from baseball, from retelling the day’s game to her father.
The books are long and written for general readers rather than other historians, which is why they reach bestseller lists and screens. The 2002 plagiarism finding is the cost of the method’s scale: she said she had not put quotation marks around phrases her footnotes credited. For a different way of writing about Lyndon Johnson, slower and more critical, see the guide to Robert Caro.
Frequently asked questions about Doris Kearns Goodwin’s books
How many books has Doris Kearns Goodwin written?
Ten, counting her book for young readers. Eight are the key books on this page, from Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (1976) to An Unfinished Love Story (2024); the other two are Every Four Years (2000) and The Leadership Journey (2024), her first book for young readers.
What are Doris Kearns Goodwin’s books in order?
Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (1976), The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys (1987), No Ordinary Time (1994), Wait Till Next Year (1997), Team of Rivals (2005), The Bully Pulpit (2013), Leadership: In Turbulent Times (2018) and An Unfinished Love Story (2024).
Where should I start with Doris Kearns Goodwin?
Team of Rivals (2005), her book about Lincoln and the rivals he brought into his cabinet. If 944 pages is too much to begin with, Leadership (2018) covers Lincoln, both Roosevelts and Johnson in one shorter volume.
What is Doris Kearns Goodwin’s most famous book?
Team of Rivals (2005). It won the 2006 Lincoln Prize, Barack Obama called it a book he would take to a desert island, and Tony Kushner drew on it for Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012). Her Pulitzer Prize came earlier, for No Ordinary Time.
Which Doris Kearns Goodwin book won the Pulitzer Prize?
No Ordinary Time (1994), about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt during the Second World War. It won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1995.
Is the film Lincoln based on Team of Rivals?
In part. Spielberg acquired the film rights after Goodwin told him about the book in 1999, and Tony Kushner’s screenplay drew on Team of Rivals. The film concentrates on the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which takes up only a few pages of the book. Daniel Day-Lewis won the Academy Award for Best Actor as Lincoln.
Did Doris Kearns Goodwin plagiarise?
In 2002 The Weekly Standard reported that The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys (1987) used phrases and sentences from three other books without attribution, most of all Lynne McTaggart’s biography of Kathleen Kennedy. Goodwin had earlier reached a private settlement with McTaggart. She said she had cited the sources in footnotes but had not used quotation marks, and she resigned from the Pulitzer Prize Board and her regular role on PBS NewsHour.
Did Doris Kearns Goodwin know Lyndon Johnson?
Yes. She joined the White House as a White House Fellow in 1967, worked on his staff, and after he left office helped him draft his memoirs. Her first book, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (1976), draws on their conversations.
Who was Doris Kearns Goodwin’s husband?
Richard N. Goodwin, who wrote speeches for John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and named Johnson’s Great Society. They married in 1975, and he died in May 2018. An Unfinished Love Story (2024) is built from his papers.
Is Doris Kearns Goodwin still alive?
Yes. She was born on 4 January 1943 in Brooklyn, New York. Her most recent books, An Unfinished Love Story and The Leadership Journey, were both published in 2024.
Footnotes
- Doris Kearns Goodwin — Wikipedia
- Team of Rivals — Wikipedia
- No Ordinary Time — Wikipedia
- Leadership in Turbulent Times — Wikipedia
- An Unfinished Love Story — Kirkus Reviews
- Wait Till Next Year — Kirkus Reviews
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“My love of history came from my love of baseball.”
— Doris Kearns Goodwin, interview on The Tim Ferriss Show (2018)
If this shelf interested you, the full bookshelf has more: reading lists by theme, author guides, and notes on what is actually worth your time.
Browse the full bookshelf Get book recommendations