Customer Reviews

Woodrow Wilson: World Statesman

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Since 1982 I have been assigning a term paper on the life of Woodrow Wilson that is largely the result of the 69-volume papers of Woodrow Wilson being available. I was always searching for a suitable up-to-date biography--as assigned reading--that would accompany this project. Over nearly twenty years I had tried several, but clearly Clements' is the most successful. Neither overly brief nor excessive in its length, it takes the students through Wilson's life in a comprehensible manner that has proven beneficial to my students. I can recommend this book to anyone who wishes to refresh their understanding of Wilson.

Kendrick A. Clements "Woodrow Wilson" delivers what it promises -an excellent introductory study of our 28th president - in just 223 pages of text. Some readers may want more intimate details about Wilson and the people in his life; for them there are 11 additional pages of pertinent bibliographical information. Clement's brief book, nevertheless - billed as the 'best available one-volume biography' on Wilson - provides the reader with that essential information that prompts many historians to rank Wilson in the top tier of U.S. presidents. We learn, for example, that Wilson (our only Ph.D. president) was one of just a handful of our truly intellectual presidents - i.e., he loved books and ideas and was a voracious reader of books and a prolific writer of books. He was the son of a Presbyterian minister who'd instilled in him a love of his fellow man and a desire to serve his fellow man. Wilson - like Theodore Roosevelt before him - came to believe that the federal government is an organ that must be involved in helping those unable to help themselves. As president he pushed through legislation that protected workers, women, and children from abuse and exploitaton in the workplace. He believed in the capitalist system and in the prerequisite free market conditions; consequently, he fought against any practices employed by business or industry designed to create monopolies or restrict free competition. As president he felt obligated to be deeply involved in both legislative and executive branch activities - in order to better realize his domestic and foreign affairs goals. Wilson was a decent man with a wide range of significant accomplishments: after acquiring his Ph.D. (political science) at Johns Hopkins University, he distinguished himself in a number of capacities - as a college/university professor, university president (Princeton), governor (New Jersey) and U.S. president (2 terms). While he was in office women got the vote, the Federal Reserve Bank was established, the mechanism for funding government activities was changed (the graduated income tax was adopted to suplement less effective tariff and excise tax revenues). When U.S. entry into World War I became unavoidable, Wilson vowed that the war should end with something positive - namely, with a non-punitive peace (provided for in his '14 Point Plan' for peace)and with the creation of an organization that could prevent world wars in the future (he proposed the League of Nations). Because U.S. congressional opposition was more powerful Wilson failed to achieve these goals - but he did win a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. Nevertheless, Wilson was correct in warning the world that a punitive peace would cause serious trouble in the future (aka Adolph Hitler), and he was correct in predicting that the world would eventually be forced to create a collective organization of nations (aka the United Nations) to resolve international disputes and to punish nations who violate international law. We now see that Wilson was also important as the transitional president who helped the United States abandon its 19th Century isolationist positions - and he did his best to push the country into the modern era (20th Century) when it would eventually accept and assume its duties and responsibilities as a leader among nations.

3 and 1/2 stars...An excellent one volume account of Wilson and probably the best analysis of his Presidency and policies that's available. My critique and the reason that it only gets 3 1/2 stars is because this book fails to put you into the early 1900's with Wilson and fails miserably (in my opinion) to give any "atmosphere" concerning that time or especially WWI. Precise analysis of all Wilson's actions are given, but no perspective, so it definately reads like a textbook. Worthwile for historical research, but not for general reading.

Woodrow Wilson. Here was a president who put himself in the middle of European power politics in order to achieve the goals he had in mind. This book helps to suggest a man of action and persuasion at a time when most Americans were fed up with affairs that didn't concern them. Woodrow Wilson is regarded with respect, but at the time he was proposig the League of Nations as the answer to the world's problems, he was criticized left and right. We now know that his policies for peace and security were right, and if Wilson was president today, we could be made certain that the world would be at peace. This book, which was written in such a way as to paint a picture of a daring, courageous president, is by far one of the better books on Wilson that I have ever read. I would recommend this account of our 28th president to both the serious student of American Presidential History, and also to the laymen reader. This book is more of an outline of alreay well-known facts, and serves as an introduction into the life of one of our country's greatest presidents.

The writing in this book is good, but in places it jumps around in time. It is also slow paced and not light reading. However, it covers Woodrow's life pretty well for a one-book volume.

Kendrick Clements presents a very good and well organized biography of President Woodrow Wilson. In eleven well written chapters he details and explains the life of this very complicated President. Wilson's life takes many interesting turns, he starts out in life and politics as a die-hard imperialist, his position starts to transform into what he would later call `collective security.' Clements lays this out brilliantly in his Wilson narrative.

The first few chapters focus on his youth and educational background. He was born Thomas Woodrow Wilson, and ultimately choosing to go by the middle name. Wilson would make a career in academia writing several papers on government. In this, his position often shifts, in his first major work,Congressional Government: A Study in American Politics, Wilson describes the American Government as inefficient and desires a parliamentary government, like the government in Great Britain. Although his first major work is a sharp critique of the American system, it was nevertheless was an important study to the American way of government. As time goes on Wilson changes his position and starts studying and writing more positively about U.S. Constitutional government, due to his admiration of President Grover Cleveland. In his last academic work, Constitutional Government of the United States, Wilson wrote a positive piece on American Government based on the presidencies of William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt; he was impressed by the office of the president stating it was as big as the one who occupies it. Wilson would become the President of Princeton University, before leaving to take up politics.

In 1910, Wilson was elected Governor of New Jersey over his opponent Vivian M. Lewis. As the new Governor, Wilson began a process of reform. Wilson established state primaries, reformed the public utilities commission, and established worker compensation laws to protect ordinary people. Wilson was being seen by many as a person who should be put in charge of the entire nation.

"Within the narrow goals set out by progressivism, Wilson was a marked success as governor of New Jersey. He and other progressives demonstrated that state government could be revitalized to deal with modern society. The irony of his success, however, was that triumph at the state level made him a national figure and a potential candidate for the presidency. The best leaders were thus plucked from the states and thrust upon the national stage, where to be successful they had to argue that the very problems they had been dealing with effectively at the state level could only be attacked from Washington. The success of state reform movements seemed to doom them and to focus attention on the national government. Wilson, for one, certainly made no attempt to resist the siren's song." p.73

In the famous election of 1912, Wilson defeated both William H. Taft and Theodore Roosevelt to capture the presidency. The first President, who had made an academic study of the presidency before entering it, was going to have tremendous success. Wilson would be able to get almost whatever he wanted out of the Congress. He would create the Federal Reserve, and reestablish the presidential tradition of delivering the State of the Union to the Congress in person. He would also make a great deal of economic reforms to help low income people.

Unfortunately he also, as President, issued executive orders, that segregated the Federal Government for the first time in history. Defenders might point out that he was a moderate when a great deal of the Congress wanted to expel all African-Americans from Federal jobs, and action that Wilson refused to do. However, Wilson's actions were harmful to many people and a long-term government mistake.

"Yet there were ways in which Wilson's detachment was a liability. Because his decisions were based on principal rather than being expedient reactions to immediate problems, he spent a great deal of time alone, reading, thinking, and writing. Some people thought him cold and aloof. He had no social ambitions, did not entertain extensively in the White House, and seemed to avoid rather than cultivate the social contacts with politicians that are the channels though which a great deal of public business flows though Washington." p.103

In 1916, Wilson would narrowly win re-election, over Charles Even Hughes, under the slogan that he kept us out of the war. Wilson however, thanks to the Zimmerman note and the sinking of the Lusitania, would end up having the United States Congress to declare war. The United States spent little time in the war, but after is where Woodrow Wilson made his big splash; the Fourteen Points and the League of Nations proposal were historic and unprecedented. They would change the very nature of foreign relations for all nations. Unfortunately, the only major nation that did not join the new League was the United States, Wilson had alienated his support at home and his treaty failed to win U.S. Senate ratification.

"Just as the stroke impaired Wilson's ability to concentrate, so it seemed to narrow and limit his mind, stripping away his political skills and ability to deal with complexities, bringing emotion very near to the surface, and intensifying his deep-seated tendency to judge all issues as right or wrong. On such matters he could be clear and decisive, firing Lansing for his disloyalty on the treaty and for encouraging a movement toward intervention in Mexico, refusing to see House because he thought the colonel had given away too much in Paris. Unwittingly, Edith and Dr. Grayson contributed to his oversimplification of issues by shielding him from his problems that might be complicated and unpleasant. Because, like many stoke victims, he denied the severity of his own illness, Wilson really believed that he was quite himself. By 1920 he was even talking about running for a third term to vindicate his stand on the league." p.216

Toward the end of his presidency he had a stroke, and was mostly unable to function as the President, his wife, Edith, (who he married during presidency after his first wife, Ellen, had died) would to bring papers for him to sign so no one would know of his condition.

His time in his post-presidency was very short. He did, however, outlive his own successor--Warren G. Harding died in 1923--where Wilson lived until 1924. Clements wrote an awesome biography that details all of these events and much more. I highly recommend this book to anyone.

I am reading all the presidential biographies in order and just finished this book.

Overall, I thought it was just "okay." I like my books to be in chronological order. This book was organized loosely chonological, but by topic. It made following the chain of events rather difficult. Also, the auther wrote the dates like this: 29 March 1917. Rather than March 19. That was a stumbling block and a distraction.

This read more like a textbook than a biography, which made it rather flat and dull. He devoted page upon page to the intracacies of war finance, but breezed over and barely mentioned the death of his wife and his debilitating series of strokes in the twilight of his administration.

If I can identify with the subject of a biography and feel as if I KNOW the subject, I can say "this is a great book." And, as corny as it may sound, I feel sad at the end when the president dies. In this book, there could have been several instances where I could have "felt" the book -- when his first wife dies, when he dies, etc. I didn't feel that at any point in the book, which means I didn't get close to Wilson.

If you are reading all the presidential bios like I am, this is a good book to get a general idea of what Wilson was like so you can move onto Warren G Harding. You'll probably need to go back and read the multi-volme bios available on Wilson to really FEEL him or to undertsand the complexities of the events leading up to and including WWI.

"God helping her...she can do no other!"

Unlike our current prez, Wilson was no war monger. He earnestly sought peace even as he committed our boys to the 20th centuries first horrific war. This is his story and I highly recommend it.