James MacGregor Burns

James MacGregor Burns is considered by many the most influential leadership scholar in the country. His 1978 book, Leadership, spawned the leadership studies movement.

Educated at Williams College, Harvard and the London School of Economics, he is a political scientist and historian. His books on FDR, including the Lion and the Fox, Roosevelt: Soldier of Freedom and others have won every major literary prize, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Woodrow Wilson Prize.

He has served as president of the American Political Science Association as well as the International Society of Political Psychology.

His recent presidential books have been on Bill Clinton (with Sorenson) and George Washington (with Susan Dunn). A new book, Transforming People, calls for a bottom-up global movement for the alleviating poverty.

Burns comments were transcribed from a discussion he had with Georgia Sorenson about the ideas presented in the Rioch lecture.