Woodrow Wilson

June 1, 2003
At a time when U.S. foreign policy and the country's role in the world are very much at issue, what could be more appropriate than to revisit the president who set U.S. foreign policy on its course in the 20th century? Brands, best-selling author and Pulitzer finalist for The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, gives a sober portrait of a president dedicated to peace yet compelled to enter a brutal war. Yet more than his actions, Brands says, it is Wilson's words that remain with us:"The world must be made safe for democracy." Brands writes elegiacally of Wilson's"beautiful words, soaring words, words moved a nation and enthralled a world, words that for a wonderful moment were more powerful than armies." Though recent events cast doubt on Brands's statement that Wilson's views ("idealism is sometimes the highest form of realism") have triumphed and that the U.S. concedes the U.N.'s"role at the center of world affairs," his contribution to the American Presidents series, edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger, is a stirring reminder of the ideals that underlie American policy.

May 1, 2003
It is often difficult in a one-volume biography to capture the full measure of the subject while giving readers a sense of the period in which he or she lived. But Brands (distinguished professor of history, Texas A&M; The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin) succeeds at both tasks. In this balanced, well-written treatment, Brands presents Wilson as a moralistic, idealistic intellectual who came to the presidency well versed in domestic policy but sadly lacking in knowledge and experience of international affairs, a leader who ultimately sacrificed his health and his presidential legacy in a doomed battle with Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge to have the League of Nations ratified. The book explores Wilson's relationships with his wives and with Colonel House, but not in great depth, though the discussion of the last 17 months of his presidency following his serious stroke is informative. In light of the Bush administration's recent efforts to circumvent the UN, Wilson's vision for a world where collective security would be guaranteed through an international agency seems even more utopian but makes reading this book all the more worthwhile. A larger work of reappraisal may still be needed, but Brands's brief, skillful life of the President is recommended for all public libraries.-Thomas J. Baldino, Wilkes Univ., Wilkes-Barre, PA

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2003
Libraries unable to afford Arthur Link's multivolume biography of Wilson should consider this digestible precis from Brands, a proven success in popular-history writing over the past decade. He shows why Wilson is one of the most significant of American presidents, albeit one with a fluctuating reputation, through an efficient recitation of his governing acts that capped the Progressive Era. Generally accepted reforms such as the income tax or the Federal Reserve, however, are not what buffet Wilson's name; it was his induction of the U.S. into World War I and the transcendental rhetoric by which he did so. Whether naive or visionary, Wilson's idealism bespoke his character, which Brands lays before his reader: Wilson possessed inflexible fiber born of his religious convictions, although Brands counts him more flexible than ordinarily thought. Wilson failed in his aspiration to set international affairs on a foundation of principle rather than power. However, Brands ably underscores Wilson's ultimate success through his eloquence and his ideas in steering thought about foreign affairs toward a liberal alternative to Realpolitik.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)