Do leaders make history or does history make leaders? For the past decade, Moshik Temkin has challenged his students at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and around the world to grapple with the nature of leadership. Now, Temkin refashions the classroom for a wider audience. Using art, film, and literature to illustrate the drama of the past, Temkin considers how leaders have made decisions in the most difficult circumstances—from the Great Depression of the 1930s to the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo and from the anticolonial wars of the 20th century to the civil rights struggle—and how, in a world desperate for good leadership, we can evaluate those decisions and draw lessons for today.