The Meaning of America: A Conversation with Doris Kearns Goodwin

UNITED Black Box Auditorium

Historic Stonington and the UNITED present a special conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times #1 best-selling author Doris Kearns Goodwin on the meaning of America in celebration of the United States Semiquincentennial. Doris will be in conversation with Adi Ignatius, former editor in chief for Harvard Business Review and Board President of Historic Stonington.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is a world-renowned, presidential historian, public speaker and Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times #1 best-selling author and partner in Pastimes Productions. She is often called upon by the news media and late night TV hosts as well as hundreds of companies, educational institutions, government agencies and nonprofits to share her vast knowledge of leadership and provide historical context for current day events, as our democracy is challenged, international wars rage, and we continue to struggle in a divided and polarized country.

Her eighth book, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s, was published in Spring 2024, became an instant #1 New York Times bestseller and is being developed as a feature film by Playtone partners Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman and Goodwin’s own Pastimes Productions. Artfully weaving together biography, memoir, and history, this new book takes readers on the emotional journey Doris and her husband, Richard (Dick) Goodwin embarked upon in the last years of his life as they delved into more than 300 boxes of letters, diaries, documents, and memorabilia that Dick had saved for more than fifty years. 

In Fall 2024, Goodwin’s first book for young readers, The Leadership Journey: How Four Kids Became President, was published. In 2020, she executive produced her first documentary miniseries, “Washington” for the History Channel, through her independent production company, Pastimes Productions Inc. Miniseries on Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt followed. 

Goodwin previously authored nine critically acclaimed and New York Times bestselling books, including the Carnegie Medal winner The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism and Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, in part the basis for Steven Spielberg’s film “Lincoln,” which earned 12 Academy Award® nominations, including an Academy Award for actor Daniel Day-Lewis for his portrayal of the 16th president. Team of Rivals is often cited as an inspiration for business and political leaders, including President Barack Obama, and was awarded the prestigious Lincoln Prize, the inaugural Book Prize for American History, and Goodwin in 2016 was the first historian to receive the Lincoln Leadership Prize from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation.

Goodwin was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in History for No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II.