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This course centers on leaders that have had a significant impact on their countries and the world. To understand these leaders and their times, we will read and discuss several substantial biographies and autobiographies. Each seminar focuses on one such leader: their youth, their careers, the challenges that they faced, and how they dealt with them, and their most important and fateful decisions. The “leaders” discussed in this course are not necessarily positive role-models. Some were in fact murderous autocrats. Many, perhaps most, were profoundly flawed individuals. Only a few were truly inspirational. Yet understanding their ambitions, their fears, their hopes, and their delusions will help us develop a better appreciation of policy making, and the impact of individual decisions on our world. The course is suitable for students of contemporary history and foreign policy.