Hi there, I'm Jason Gatz and you're listening to Think Again a Big Think podcast.

On Think Again, we have unpredictable conversations about big ideas with some of the most creative thinkers on the planet.

They're sparked by my own curious questions and by surprise ideas from Big Think's archives.

What do Rachel Carson, Frederick Douglass, Dietrich Bonhofer, Ernest Shackleton, and

Abraham Lincoln have in common, aside from being historical figures you've probably

heard of?

That's the question my guest today tries to answer in her new book, Forged in Crisis.

At a time when trustworthy leadership seems in short supply,

it examines what real leadership is and how it comes about.

I'm very happy to welcome Harvard historian Nancy Kane to the show.

Welcome, Nancy.

Thank you, Jason. It's a pleasure to be here.

I have to say that you, your book won me over immediately

because the definition or the sort

of explanation of leadership that you quoted right in the beginning was by one of my absolute

favorite thinkers, David Foster Wallace.

Can we talk a little bit about that?

Like what, how do you even begin to sort of answer that question of what real leadership is or is,

does the adjective, does real even apply, you know?

I think real applies just fine.

I mean, we're suffering from a really terrifying and disillusioning absence of real

leadership, at least on the national, in the highest levels of national power right now.

...