This profound inquiry into the life of the 28th president reveals what kind of man he was, how he came by his exalted ideas and why he failed in the end. Dutch historian Schulte Nordholt focuses on the bitter wrangling at the Paris Peace Conference between Wilson and the other Allied leaders and on the clash between Wilson and the Senate over ratification of the Versailles Treaty and the League of Natons. Acknowledged as one of history's pivotal figures, Wilson is characterized as the embodiment of America's naive idealism, a "brilliant mixture of vision and delusion." Schulte Nordholt argues that Wilson's belief in the reasonableness and goodness of humans--one element of the "typically American complex of religion and nationalism" which Wilson called "faith"--contributed significantly to his failure as a statesman. An excellent scholarly work. Photos.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
A Dutch historian here makes good use of the source materials and of both American and European scholarship in this thoughtful biography which depicts Wilson as an inflexible idealist, "a nineteenth century man . . . in the disastrous twentieth century." He focuses first on the development of Wilson's political philosophy, then on Wilsonian policy through World War I and the peace negotiations. His study is aimed more at an academic audience than August Heckscher's more sympathetic Woodrow Wilson ( LJ 9/15/91), which gives greater attention to Wilson's personal life. Get Heckscher for the general reader; research collections will also need Schulte Nordholt.
- Nancy C. Cridland, Indiana Univ. Libs., Bloomington
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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