Customer Reviews

Woodrow Wilson and World Politics: America's Response to War and Revolution (Galaxy Books)

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

 

 

This is a fundamental book on U.S. foreign policy in the 20th century, its premises and contradictions. It is also an acute account of Wilsonian "idealism." It has general as well as specific value and is not in the least dated.

It is one of a handful of basic books on the making of American foreign policy.

Woodrow Wilson believed that American foreign policy should aim to spread democratic capitalism to every corner of the world. He thought that democratic capitalist countries would eschew war, uplift their populations, accept American leadership, and open their markets to American trade and investment. The upshot would be a peaceful capitalist world order regulated by morality and international law, where American firms could sell their surpluses and make productive investments. The main threats to his vision were reactionary imperialism on the right (as exemplified by Imperial Germany) and communist revolution on the left (as exemplified by Lenin and the Bolsheviks).

"Woodrow Wilson and World Politics" shows how Wilson's worldview played out in Germany, Russia and the Far East in the aftermath of World War I. It is based on solid archival work and is alive to the nuances and ambiguities of real-world foreign policy. I knocked off one star only because the book's lack of biographical detail or other "color" makes it a fairly dry read. Readers should know, moreover, that the book is mainly a treatment of Wilsonian ideology and its application in specific cases. It is not a detailed reconstruction of Woodrow Wilson's entire foreign policy.

It is impossible to read "Woodrow Wilson and World Politics" in 2008 without drawing comparisons to the foreign policy of George Bush. Bush shares with Wilson a moralistic approach to world affairs that grates on foreigners and gives rise to charges of hypocrisy. He also shares the belief that long-term American well-being requires that all states (at least in the Islamic world) adopt American-style political and economic systems. But whereas Wilson put his faith in international law and the League of Nations, Bush has opted for unilateralism and aggressive war. His goals and rhetoric may be Wilsonian but his methods come straight from the playbook of Big Power diplomacy.

I am going to write an unfair review. This book is probably useful for scholars or fans of Woodrow Wilson. However, I did not find it very interesting. Woodrow Wilson was not one of my favorite presidents. The book did not change my mind about him. It was not a good "read" and it was not sufficiently informative to me to justify reading through the pedestrian prose. In addition, I am told that Wilson scholarship is now more advanced and perhaps kinder to Wilson in this particular area. If you are deeply interested in this subject, do not let me put you off reading this book. If you have a more general interest in Wilson, I would suggest reading a different book.