Both Woodrow Wilson and World War I are generally overlooked by American historians because FDR and World War II tends to overshadow them. However, as Berg makes clear, both set the stage for the American century by transforming an isolationist country into the dominant player on the world stage. The son of a Presbyterian minister and a university president, US President Woodrow Wilson led America into this change. Although Congress never accepted his major creation (the League of Nations), he laid the intellectual framework in what eventually became the United Nations.
Wilson was the first Southern president after the Civil War. An intellectual by nature and a professor at and president of Princeton University, he led the Democratic party into becoming the party of thoughtful and educated leaders. Wilson’s legacy has diminished in recent years because he did not forcefully combat racism despite good opportunities to do so. He could have used World War I as an instrument to change the secondary status of racial minorities in America, but he did not. These two major criticisms – latent racism and the failure of the League of Nations – are fair critiques that both Wilson and Berg do not deal with squarely. The reckoning of American history shows that further work was needed.
Still, as Berg elucidates, Wilson laid out a progressive agenda for the twentieth century not just for America but for the world. World War I made the United States into the difference maker in European affairs. The resulting Treaty of Versailles, for all its weaknesses, sought to make democracy the common language of Europe. Unfortunately, this process did not complete until after a second world war, and even then, Wilson’s famous Fourteen Points did not completely succeed. However, the overall direction did eventually succeed as the world was made “safe for democracy.”
Berg’s work provides a thorough and in-depth examination of these issues. Frankly, he is too apologetic for Wilson when faced with these criticisms. Wilson made some significant missteps, and that is why many historians keep him out of the top echelon of American presidents. One gets the feeling that Berg is attempting to push Wilson into this select group, but he fails to persuade me. Wilson is presented here as a big man trying to move history forward. Instead, entire cultures needed to be transformed. Versailles represented a meeting of a few elite leaders in small rooms; the mental disposition of the peoples of several continents needed reorganization, however. Berg does not entirely address such criticisms.
At 800-plus pages, this work does accomplish an thorough and artful job of telling of Wilson’s life. The pictures are well-chosen, and the research is erudite. However, Berg is too sympathetic with his subject. Those with historical leanings are especially targeted with this work, and they surely could have withstood a more critical eye into this leader. That said, Berg correctly shows that America needed Woodrow Wilson’s transforming leadership. American intervention into World War I changed both the European continent and America. However, the resulting momentum achieved an incomplete direction that needed further resolution, and to achieve a great biography of a US President, such honest assessments need to be made direct and clear.
Wilson
By A. Scott Berg
Copyright (c) 2013
G.P. Putnam’s Sons
ISBN13 9781101636411
Page Count: 819
Genre: Biography, American History
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