How the Best Did It: Leadership Lessons From Our Top Presidents

About the book: How the Best Did It: Leadership Lessons From Our Top Presidents is an accessible and insightful explanation of how the most important leadership traits from America’s eight greatest presidents can be implemented by today’s leaders. Presidential historian Talmage Boston takes the leadership lessons gained from our greatest presidents and makes them instructive today for all established and aspiring leaders who seek to enhance their performance.

His assessments have been endorsed by leading presidential historians Jon Meacham (on the front of the dust jacket), David O. Stewart (on the Washington chapter), Annette Gordon-Reed (on the Jefferson chapter), Ronald White (on the Lincoln chapter), Douglas Brinkley (on the Theodore Roosevelt chapter), Doris Kearns-Goodwin (on the FDR chapter), Evan Thomas (on the Eisenhower chapter), Mark Updegrove (on the JFK chapter), and Will Inboden (on the Reagan chapter). Presidential historian and CNN political analyst John Avlon has written the book’s foreword.

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About the author: Talmage Boston is a well-known figure among leading historians as an author, speaker, and onstage interviewer. His work has been endorsed by David McCullough, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jon Meacham, Douglas Brinkley, Annette-Gordon-Reed, Evan Thomas, and H.W. Brands, as well as many other esteemed presidential biographers. Boston is the author of Cross-Examining History (foreword by Ken Burns), Raising the Bar (foreword by former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh), Baseball and the Baby Boomer (foreword by Frank Deford), and 1939: Baseball’s Tipping Point (foreword by John Grisham).

He is also one of the most highly recognized lawyers in Texas, having been chosen for three major statewide awards in the last four years by the Texas Bar Foundation and the State Bar of Texas’ Litigation Section. Boston has been named a “Texas Super Lawyer” by Thompson Reuters every year since 2003, and among the “Best Lawyers in America” every year since 2013. He is the only lawyer to receive a “Presidential Citation” from eight different presidents of the State Bar of Texas for outstanding service to the State Bar.

Working as both a full-time commercial litigator and a full-time historian throughout the twenty-first century, Boston’s varied experience and notable achievements in both fields make him uniquely qualified to write How the Best Did It due to his knowledge of history, his skills as a writer, and his vast experience in business and law. In November 2023, Boston will be recognized by the Dallas Historical Society as “The History Maker of the Year” in the field of promoting history in North Texas.

Boston lives in Dallas with his wife Claire, son Scott, daughter Lindsey, son-in-law Mitchell, and young grandsons. To learn more, visit his website at talmageboston.com.

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