Conversations with Power What Great Presidents and Prime Ministers Can Teach Us about Leadership

by Till, Brian Michael

• ISBN13: 9780230110588
• ISBN10: 0230110584
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-05-10
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Summary

Fresh out of college and just beginning his work as a syndicated columnist and a researcher at the New America Foundation, Brian Till set out to interview the former world leaders he most admired. He hardly expected to get his foot in the door'”much less to have revelatory, insightful conversations with so many of them. Here, he distills their collective wisdom into key lessons for aspiring leaders of the future, including the best ways to handle opposition, public opinion, and the information revolution. With a stunning list of interviewees including Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Ehud Barak, and Václav Havel, and Nobel Laureates Mikhail Gorbachev, Pervez Musharraf, FW de Klerk, and Martti Ahtisaari, among many others, these conversations provide an illuminating, entertaining, and uplifting reminder of what is possible when great leaders inspire and the public is engaged.

Author Biography

Brian Michael Till is a Research Fellow at the New America Foundation and a correspondent for The Atlantic. His columns have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Newsday, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the St. Petersburg Times, among others. He has been a guest on NPR's Talk of the Nation and has worked with Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont and the Treatment Action Campaign in Cape Town, South Africa. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
The Sociologist	p. 5
The Matador	p. 23
The Viking Warrior	p. 43
The Playwright	p. 61
Two Gorbachevs	p. 77
The Last Afrikaner King	p. 93
The Good General	p. 115
The Horologist	p. 137
The Natural	p. 157
A Good & Decent American	p. 171
Schmidt Schnauze	p. 187
Wooden Tiger	p. 201
Canberra's Maestro	p. 221
Conclusion	p. 241
Acknowledgments	p. 245
Notes	p. 248
Index	p. 257
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